I like my system flat, no tone controls, no eq..........what is your preference, and why.

i really like my decware zrock2. maybe its the fact that my amp only puts out two watts or that a lot of recordings can benefit from a slight bump in mid bass? rather than raising the volume knob a bump on the zrock is my preference.

I'll pass on tone controls. I play music and every song can sound different...some will be bright, while others may not. I assume each song sounds different because of the way it was recorded and I wouldn't want to make adjustments every-time I listen to music.

I’m pretty much a big believer in (good quality) EQ. I now use digital, parametric EQ. The problem with it has always been the noise factor...push too much in the upper mids and you get hash, too much in the midbass or lower mids and you get mud or colorations. Push too much in the low bass and maybe the amp starts to sweat. But then I happened to find a great (but expensive) power treatment solution. One of the benefits, apart from taming all the digital and ss nasties, was curing all those EQ limitations.

But I’ve been using EQ in one form or another for almost 45 yrs now and with prior systems that we’re not nearly as good as my current one. As things progressed over the years, the one thing I learned was that for whatever problem you could want to use EQ for, you could, in the end, invariably trace the roots of that problem back, in effect, to things that could be adjusted, replaced or otherwise fixed without ever having to resort to EQ...even if going that route would cost more, perhaps even significantly more.

But I no longer believe in using EQ to help with "bad recordings" per se. I regard all of that (as above) as some sort of unresolved playback problem of one sort or another...there’s no such thing to me actually as "bad recordings" - they amount to about 1% of my CD’s at current. With my past systems they seemed more like 35-40%. Things have progressed enough for me that I don’t have "problem" recordings and actually have less need for room correction, gear correction, etc. My dependency on EQ has not dropped to zero, I still use a little for the bass and a touch on the top end, but that’s all, anymore these days.

EQ is a terrific (if not indispensable) band-aid to have on hand in the beginning, but in the end, to me, maybe that’s all it really should be...just a band-aid...useful maybe, but not essential. In a "perfect system", EQ would not be needed at all...but then, who among us has the perfect system? Yet, the closer we get to that, I think the less we need it...maybe a good thing, I’d say...it depends on how you weigh out the costs of fixing things the right way vs just using EQ.

Thank you all for the feedback. Douglas Schroeder. Yes, I agree, as shown in some many products. Are you familiar, from the past, with an a/v store on 45th street, East side of Manhattan, called Grand Central Radio ?                                                                                      Maplegrovemusic. Unless folks are using a sound pressure level meter, and was using test tone sweeps, what would be the basis of flat ? They are adjusting to what their ears like.                                    Nonoise…...Yes, I believe we are quite similar in our " moment " of no need for more. I have adopted and accepted the fact of recording limitations. However, it is the most truthful and honest way of hearing what the musicians were doing, and all of the studio people, at that time.                                                                                                       Wolfie boy..Glad we are not talking about fuses here, lol. I easily understand the desire and use for eq in the " live " environment, as well as the home environment. I understand to many, tone and eq conrol in the home environment is necessary Why I posted this.          N80, you have become a real face around hear, in such a short amount of time. Your threads are always interesting, as well as your responses to many. I appreciate that. I appreciate everyone here, as I feel I know all of you, as the regularity of the reads just does that. N80, you no longer need to state your inherited system, as we all know by now. In fact I know what each of you have in your systems, and basically a lot about you all as listeners. Just be reading all of you. n80, as far as some of your recording not sounding ok to you ( one of my worst, but one of my faves, is Tull's Aqualung ). I have accepted the sq's that are missing, but, easily listen and follow the musicians. I am never listening for compression, imaging, and of the audio stuff. I am listening to the music. My system shows the weaknesses, but it does allow me to listen, without needing for me to put on muffs. How many listen to headphones, and still use eq, or tone control ? I would like to recommend a recording to all of you, as it does show, very simply, if your system is tuned, and balanced. Musically, it is excellent as well. Last thing. This poster on this other thead ( viber6 ) over on WC's amp thread, was talking about his Rane ME 60 two channel, 30 band 1/3 octave eq, and how it is the most significant piece in his entire system. He is not just using it as an eq, but as his line level preamp ( it had replaced a Spectral preamp. I communicated with him on WC's thread ( all interesting and entertaining reading, with a bunch of good guys on there ). Long story short, I promise. I pulled out from a closet of mine my very own Rane ME 60 ( production run # 2, refer to Ken Rothwell on the Rane ME60 ). Played with it for a few days, did my chassis resonance mods to it, played it again, and wow. Nice. Result, I did not need to eq anything. I left if flat. I took it out of the system, as it was not as clean as my Luninous unit. viber is, and has been, recommending to WC to acquire one, to be used to correct, things for his new 80K Martin Logan Neos system.  Thank you all for joining in. Enjoy ! MrD.

The term flat response is truly meaningless once we get gear into our rooms,what is flat at the factory never remains flat in our rooms ,even if our rooms Accoustics have been treated using panels and room correction software , I refuse to buy a preamp without tone controls and stick with McIntosh for that very reason ,my youngest son works in a studio as an audio engineer & he laughs at our ways , durring recording the amount of ober dubs and auto tune makes the whole idea of " hearing the way the musician intended us to hear " a bad deal , I've now got over 10,000 recordings in my CD collection & over 1,000 heavy weight vinyl LPs ,a good number of the CDs are compressed to insanity and an equal percentage of my albums fall.short in Dynamics ,if I can fix or better the sound I'm hearing by a 1DB increase at let's say 70hz then by all means I'm adjusting the tone ,I can't imagine listening to music where the manufacturers idea of what sounds good is what every song will sound like , I use tone controls ,a sophisticated EQ with room response measuring software as well as room correction software at all times .