To tone control or not to tone control

Doc, you are correct to a point. Many (most?) recordings are equalized and processed. This is especially true with pop and rock recordings that are recorded to many tracks and then mixed down to 2. A lot of these are equalized and compressed to sound better on car radios so they don't always sound so good on a high end system. However, there are a large number of recordings that are recorded directly to 2 tracks with little or no processing. That is I why I advocated putting the tone control in the processor loop so it could be switched in and out as needed.

Bruce, your suggestion is a novel one offered in the face of necessity, and I agree that it is a good one. I myself have no qualms about, gasp, dialing in some bass equalization when it is needed. I also agree that being able to defeat any equalization is also a desirable feature.

What irks me is that we have to cook up work-arounds like this because the audio industry, in their ongoing orgy of greed and stupidity, has failed us so miserably as consumers. The references to the availability of EQ on gear such as Cello and Accuphase convinces me that EQ is not an inherently inferior thing. The fact that such a basic feature as tone control is only available on such astronomically priced equipment is what raises my blood pressure.

I've heard this "straight wire with gain" crap from so many dealers and have seen it promoted so frequently in the audio press that I think many have simply accepted it as fact. IMHO, this is an excuse invented by the manufacturers for deleting tone controls from most gear. After all, including this basic feature at a reasonable price would require careful design and execution. Why not perpetuate illogical hooey instead, operating on the premise that consumers are so stupid that they will not only buy it, but help perpetuate the myth? This way, you can include this most basic of features on only the most exclusive gear and charge obscene prices for it.

I honestly believe that this is how the majority of high-end manufacturers think and operate. It is also the reason that they have nearly killed the high-end market. If you doubt what I say, try to imagine what PC's would be like today if they were made by high-end audio manufacturers.

Rather than 128 meg of RAM we would still have only 64K, and 20 meg hard drives would be the norm. But these devices would run so well because all internal connections would be gold plated. Our printer cables would cost $2000 because of the claimed superiority of their super-hetero-hedron-hyperlitz configuration, and our CPU towers would rest on some queer pucks that had set us back $200 for the set. And can you imagine the groovy gold anodized casings that all this gear would come in? OOOh, what if they could go back to using vacuum tubes as well? I think that you get my point.

Doc, what's the problem with tubes? What the $#@% *is* your point -- other than the one on the top of your head? OOOh!

Jimbo, the thread is about TONE CONTROL, and my points were:
(1) There is nothing inherently evil about EQ as it exists in almost all of your source material to begin with.
(2) Tone controls are a basic feature and it should be possible to incorporate high quality, defeatable tone controls in even moderately priced gear.
(3) The high-end audio manufacturers and their supplicants have chosen instead to spread illogical claptrap about the pernicious effects of EQ, and many audiophiles are only too willing to perpetuate this myth without critically examining the underlying premise.

Your insulting response is interesting as I've said nothing that you should have taken so personally, assuming that you weren't squeezed from the birth canal of a vacuum tube. But your reaction regarding tubes only reinforces my thesis about the high-end.

Going back to the computer analogy, can you imagine discussion boards where people flame back and forth about the relative computational efficiency of vacuum tubes vs. IC's? The rapid pace of innovation in that industry has rendered any such discussion absurd.

Yet in high-end audio, arguments regularly rage on about the relative merits of tubes vs. solid state ... and rightfully so because the competing technologies are still so close that differences in their relative merits remain arguable. This is because the slow rate of innovation in audio has not significantly widened the gap between solid state and those arcane and silly vacuum tubes!

And before you flame back on that one, consider where many of your beloved tubes are manufactured -- in communist or former communist countries. Have you ever asked yourself, gee is it because there are so damn many communist audiophiles? No, it is because they are mired in a system which does not innovate well and they still have to rely on the silly damned antiquated things. Beyond being so technologically enlightened, they also know how to put people with dissenting views in their place.

So, flame away about the wonders of the vacuum tube and those noble manufacturers that charge you ridiculous prices to enjoy them. While you're at it, let me have both barrels about the wonders of the horse-drawn carriage vis-a-vis automobiles, and the evils of indoor plumbing. I wait with eager anticipation, pointy head and all.

Whats up Doc? I'll buy the tone control argument, but I got real problems with the tube one. Have you witnessed the evolution of solid state since the early 60s? I have and can tell you that it took solid state untill the 1980s before it became even mildly competitive with tube circuitry. The reaction we had to early solid state was the same one we had with early digital. "Is that a violin or a buzz saw. It turned this wonderful, all tube, Living Stereo recording of Heiftz into a buzz saw...on BOTH occasions! Today, solid state amplifiers are of course much improved, but high end manufacturers are trying to get them to sound tubelike, not vice versa. Even RCA and Mercury saw it that way when the reissue series for Living Stereo and Living Presance began. They just were not able to get the desired result with Solid State. By the way I have never heard a solid state amp or preamp sound as real as a tubed one...not even once. Sorry, but thats the reality of the situation.