Michi P5 Preamp Tone control Distortion

@pdjmwj If you’re using tone controls there’s something much more seriously wrong with your system or room that should be addressed before resorting to tone controls.  Just my $0.02 FWIW.

@jetter I totally get what you’re saying.  I should’ve qualified my statement by saying I tend to only listen to well-recorded material, which is probably why I never feel the need for tone controls.  If using the Loki increases your listening enjoyment, well, that’s really what this is all about and Goodonya.  There’s always more than one way of doing things in this nutty hobby of ours.

I also find it a bit ironic that we as listeners don’t want to consider using EQ, but if you realized how extensively at least some type of EQ or spectral balance shaping techniques were used in the mixing & production process of 95% of the music that we listen to, you would be shocked.

No, I wouldn’t be shocked at all. But as I mentioned all the music I listen to on my home system is well recorded because that’s what I choose to do. If I wanna listen to a crap recording to the point that it requires EQ I’ll listen on Alexa or some cheap earbuds rather than trying to polish the turd on my home system. If a recording engineer uses EQ to achieve good results I’m fine with that and have never felt any need for tone controls whatsoever nor do I wanna add more electronics into the signal path to do so. But, if you need or like using EQ live it up. To each his own. I’ll just note that no high-end systems at audio shows use EQ. None. Why do you think that is? And why is it that very few high-end preamps or integrateds offer tone controls? Hmmm. There’s a message there somewhere. But you do you and that’s perfectly fine.

The bit about car audio is useless. Sitting right in front of the left speaker in a highly compromised space with external noise is a nonstarter for really good sound, so once again you’re just using EQ to polish the turd. Of course if you try to get car audio to sound decent for the driver any passengers are completely screwed. It’s severely compromised no matter how you slice it. So it goes.