@stereo5 If the tone controls are designed properly, you will miss nothing.
Every cap, resistor, pot, switch, wire, PCB, layout, ground scheme, connector, dielectric etc. has a 'sound.' Some deteriorate over time. Add a bunch of them together to create a filter and you not only get the filter but you also get the combination of all the 'sounds'.
Only nothing sounds the same as nothing.
@almarg Don't forget Spica. I heartily agree that time trumps frequency six ways to Sunday. Tone controls alter the frequency and eff up the time. If the time is messed up as in most speakers, tone controls may be less objectionable.
@whart I guess one assumption that continues to hold is that the system should be properly set up, "voiced" and left alone
As a former recording engineer, I have this perspective, but I was there long before I started recording. If some program
requires EQ, it's a bad job and I can't be bothered to fix it. There's just too much well recorded great music to waste time on the bad stuff. That being said, I do sometimes 'fix' digital files but I gotta really
LOVE the music.
I am increasingly ambivalent about the purist approach, knowing how much gimmickry already goes into to most commercial recordings and how difficult it is to reproduce the illusion
I had that attitude about 30 years ago when I quit recording. In the past 3 years, I've focused back on purist improvements. The close I get to the music without the masking, the better I enjoy it.