Preamps ... no bass or treble control?

Hpims is right about the Mac. Quad used to have a pretty good pre-amp with similar items but called them something other than tone controls; I can't remember what.

I think two reasons exist for not having tone controls:

1) It's still considered "less than purist and therefore not cool" to have them.

2) The designers don't have to address them as it would take more skill and work.

Not saying designers are lazy but why should they waste time and effort when we are demanding them? I remember calling conrad-johnson in 1990 asking when they would start supplying remote control volume with the pre-amps. I was told in a rather haughty tone, "We will never include remote controls. They do nothing but degrade the sound." Theirs are now the state of the art and accepted as the norm. It would be nice if we would start demanding the same effort applied to proper tone controls, and the companies would start compying.

"The proof of a pudding is in the eating." - George Harrison

As a music lover I would not reject anything for any other reason than it reduces the music coming from the speakers. As an somewhat neurotic audiophile I'd be very careful before introducing another transfer of signal(s) in my system. This includes complex amp designs and multiple driver speakers.

However, I've been able to blend a REL subwoofer into the system which has only increased the musical enjoyment. Same thing for the Tonian supertweeters I bought 6-7 weeks ago. So now I'm running a 4 way system which sounds way more musical than the 2 way stand mounts alone.

I also had a Placette passive for 2-3 years which created better music than the conrad-johnson it replaced. However, about a year ago a Joule Electra LA150 made better music than the Placette so I bought it and sold the passive.

I have no tone controls in the system but intend to someday soon audition one of the digital or analog units out there like PARC.