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Are tone controls worth a second look ?


Are tone controls still prohibited from ''high end''audio?

Seems to me that with all of the advances in electronic design, they starting to make sense again.

In my humble opinion, tone controls are not unlike adding, or substracting sonic flavor to music reproduction. Like switching interconnects or speaker cables that will affect the sound in X or Y manner.

I am not reffering to a technical comparison between tone controls and cables, but rather that their effect could be similar. When you think of it, cables have their own colors. And we pay dearly for this without the opportunity of a ''tone defeat'' button.

What do you think?
sonicbeauty

Showing 2 responses by onhwy61

onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,343 posts
 
I have two quality systems and both have tone controls. The McIntosh C42 has an 8 band EQ. In the downstairs system the Drawmer D/A has a 4 band parametric EQ and a single band dynamic EQ. Basically the controls are set and forget, but they are engaged. What theoretical distortions they add are easily overridden by the tonal benefits they enable.
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,343 posts
 
Orpheus10, artist don't record music! Recording engineers record music. Mastering engineers, record producers and even music label executives generally have more say about the final "sound" of an album than the musicians. That being the situation, a plausible case can be made that the end listener should also have some control over the sound.

BTW, EQs are very flexible. If not used properly they can make things far worst then when you started. Also, good sounding EQs are not inexpensive.
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