Message from the Past: We were never against tone controls


For those of us who started being audiophiles a very long time ago, we have a message for you all:

We were never against tone controls. We were against poor sounding tone controls, and many of them were. From bass / treble nobs to 1/3 octave equalizers, they all were almost universally garbage.

That was decades ago. Now things are in some cases much better, or at least, not nearly as bad sounding as a poor recording.  Stop using guidelines from the 1980's to decide what to do.

You are not obligated to sit through a performance without adjusting the music to suite your tastes. It’s OK to boost the bass, or turn down the treble for your liking. You have all the permission you need.
erik_squires
I’m in on tone controls after 30 foolish years of rejection. I’ve discovered to my great disappointment that my hearing above 10k has diminished. A boost at 10k plus brings the shimmer back. Luxman offers this in a very high quality manner. 
4425, get yourself an audiogram and a room control system and you can match your hearing loss exactly. Not kidding!
I must admit, I do sleep at night, though my preamp is set to "bypass" the tone controls.
Generally anything between the source and the amplifier will suck the life out of the music.
But if you have a thirst for a certain frequency( usually bass?), then have at it :-).
Generally anything between the source and the amplifier will suck the life out of the music.


I must differ.  There's no life sucking here. Even with less decent tone controls, they usually give more than they take. Like @4425 stated, above, the Luxman tone controls are superb. I don't hear any of the previous tone control issues, so I have to believe Luxman doesn't have a lock here, but that other makers can also do good things with tone controls.