Are tone controls worth a second look ?

After re-visited my own thread a year later, I might as well share my updated experience.

After a good decade+ of not having tone controls, I could hardly let them go now. After owning mega-dollar amps, I ''downgraded'' to an Anthem 225 with tones, and now the amazing Yamaha AS 2000 integrated with microprocessor (defeatable) tone and volume control.

My heaviest use of controls as been with FM broadcast - Internet radio from ipod to digital transport (cambridge id-100) to DacMagic. And of course the many less-than-stellar cd recordings. Almost none with analog vinyl though.

Not to mention my imperfect listening room with bare flooring.

Funny, since using the tone controls again - I have stopped switching speaker cables and interconnects every other month - and probably save a lot of money and frustration in the process - which leaves me a bit more or my rare time available to enjoy music - and that's the whole point right?

Absolutely

Not this week.

Someone mentioned this briefly before, but it got lost in the shuffle: most of us have imperfect hearing. As I'm solidly in the middle age category now, my hearing has definitely declined in certain frequency ranges (no doubt due in part to too many insanely loud punk and rock concerts in my younger years, as well as listening to my car stereo WAY too loud in my 20s). I suspect I'm not the only one in this boat.

If someone's hearing has deteriorated in certain frequency ranges (usually the higher frequencies), then they aren't hearing the music as it was intended to be heard by the musicians, even with the "purest" audiophile system. If that can be compensated (at least in part) by boosting those frequencies, then why would this be considered "impure?" If anything, it would bring the music back closer to the way it was intended to be heard by the artist.

Ideally, the listener could get a graph of their hearing sensitivity at each frequency, and then plug that data into a sophisticated equalizer that would adjust the music to compensate and personalize it to the specific listener. Personally, I'd love this.

IMO, since there is such a wide difference in recording quality, tone controls just make sense.