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Tone controls -- assuming you're ok with them, when would you try them?

So, I'm learning and experimenting w/ speaker/sub placement. I've had some success. Presently using my old Adcom GTP-400 preamp (treble, bass, and loudness/contour controls). It's likely my next amps won't have tone controls (nor balance). 

Beyond compensating for old/bad recordings, I realize there is, nevertheless, a standing debate whether tone controls are worth the (likely) sound degradation. Imagine that debate was settled and tone controls were deemed worthwhile, overall. IF you'll stipulate to all that, my question is this:

QUESTION: If the sound is not right in your room, and you've placed speakers as best you can, what do you try next? At what point do you go for tone controls?

Perhaps some just go for tone controls from the get-go…happy to hear from you all, too.

FWIW, I saw this nice list from @erik_squires on this topic:   
erik_squires8,293 posts
08-19-2017 11:06am
Tone controls help us compensate for differences in recording trends across decades of recordings.
Tone controls help us adjust our sound quality to different listening situations and volumes.
Tone controls help us adjust for speaker placement.
Tone controls are much cheaper and more efficient way of doing this than most other solutions.
A good tone control is a lot easier to implement than a good equalizer. Fewer bands so more affordable to use high quality parts.

128x128hilde45
hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
5,068 posts
 
@erik_squires I tried to head that off with the setup to my question. To me, there’s not much difference between audio and food. You think a salad is better with a bit of pepper? You in the mood for parmesan on your pizza? Your coffee needs more milk? Who am I to say? It’s not my place. Your equipment, your subjective experience.

The question becomes a live one when one already prefers to leave the sound alone -- a nod to the purists -- but wants, occasionally, to adjust things, to fix a problem. Then, the question becomes "How best to do that?" The answer "I’d never do that" is tantamount either to, "Sound problems can *always* be fixed without tone controls" or "I’d rather live with the problem than introduce tone controls (because they’re just another problem)."
erik_squires
16,389 posts
 
"Sound problems can *always* be fixed without tone controls"


There’s more to life than serving your stereo. Not everyone can afford a dedicated listening room, or different speakers for different uses. Also, how, exactly, do you fix issues of the recording engineer making choices for speakers that were trendy a decade ago?

The purist ideology falls flat more often than not. Also, why NOT use tone controls if they are otherwise transparent? Why should I go out looking for a new preamp/amp/power cable if the tone control is right in front of me??

Why on earth are super expensive cables OK to use to adjust the tone, hell even buying new speakers and amps, why are those OK but not tone controls?? Makes no sense to me.
hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
5,068 posts
 
@erik_squires That's exactly right. I was reading a thread here on Agon, "Which Steely Dan recordings should I get?" Turns out, there are many different versions; some mastered this way, others mastered that way. Which one is the true one? No such thing. "Better" and "worse" versions exist contingent on what the particular goals of a particular listener are. Again -- up to each of us. You want punchy upper end and you get that with tone controls? Go ahead, spice it up. I sleep better when I know that absolutely everything which could "degrade" the signal has been eliminated? Waiter, bring me a glass of milk. 
decooney
2,198 posts
 
...The purist ideology falls flat more often than not. Also, why NOT use tone controls if they are otherwise transparent? Why should I go out looking for a new preamp/amp/power cable if the tone control is right in front of me??  ...

And those same purists use interconnect and speaker cables as passive tone controls, while tube folks roll tubes to change tone too. Yet some rather go spend big $$$ on a new preamp or power cables over tone controls with hopes of changing the tone and sound in some way.  It's all good, just interesting how we all approach it in different ways.  

One way or the other there is some tone-controlling going on. :) 
hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
5,068 posts
 
Some people even get the wax cleared out of their ears. That's a drastic form of tone control.
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