Adding Tone Controls?

I certainly appreciate all the comments, but I must not have communicated the issue properly, based on some of the responses. Room correction electronics such as the recommended Antimode Dual Core 2.0, power cords, interconnect cables, or power conditioners would seem to impose their changes to the system all the time, for all recordings. I'm not opposed to general improvements, but good recordings already sound fabulous on my system as is.

What I was looking for were recommendations on tweaking the sound ONLY on those recordings that suffer from the misguided hand of the recording engineer.

An equalizer of some sort that can be switched in or out as needed seems the best recommendation I've heard so far. Granted, use of such a device will reduce transparency, and modifies the sound from what the engineer (or the artist) created. Unfortunately that might have to be the price to pay to make the material listenable (to me at least)'

Bama,

HArd to say without hearing, but my gut tells me that there may still some system level tweaking along the lines folks have suggested possible to get the best general performance possible out of you setup.

If it were me, I would exhaust all the possibilities towards that end first to be in the best general position possible before looking to tweak specific recordings or recording types. You could find the need is gone at that point or perhaps greatly reduced at a minimum.

IF there are a lot of recordings of any genre that do not sound good or right, that is usually an indicator that something is still not right in general.

However, the sound of recordings varies widely. If you goal is to merely make them more uniform tweaking the whole system to best effect is not the solution. A flexible or even programmable sound processor of some sort is needed, though I think the extent to which any lesser recording can be made to sound like the best recordings is inherently limited.

Room correction electronics such as the recommended Antimode Dual Core 2.0 ... would seem to impose their changes to the system all the time, for all recordings .... An equalizer of some sort that can be switched in or out as needed seems the best recommendation I've heard so far.

See my post above, dated 11-23-12. As I understand it the DSPeaker Antimode Dual Core 2.0 can be used purely as a parametric equalizer, albeit a very sophisticated one that operates in the digital domain internally (while providing both analog and digital interfaces), and I see no reason that it couldn't be installed in your system such that it can be completely removed from the signal path, when desired, at the flick of a switch.

Regards,
-- Al

Bama,

WHich what are some pop band recordings specifically that you are looking to improve?

Thanks.

Bama214,

I can confirm what Al said. You can run the DSPeaker Dual Core through your tape loop, if you want to have the option of running analog with the signal not touching the Dual Core at all.

AND, it also has the capability of storing four different EQ & DSP profiles, in addition to a Bypass button on the remote that removes an of the DSPeaker settings (leaving you with just the DAC or A/D/A conversion of an analog signal).

So it is possible to have separate settings for low quality recordings that can tone down the aspects that you are not enjoying (and for treble there is a specific "Tilt" setting that begins at the frequency of your choosing), and settings that best suit certain genres of music, volume levels, etc.

If you can't find these locally to audition, a number of online dealers have audition or return possibilities. Tweek Geek was who I used, with both Audition and 30 day return options.