Do you use tone controls?

So good systems will sound worse, and bad systems will sound better...

I mostly agree, now take the system out of the equation, and apply to a recording...."Bad ones will sound better", great ones will sound worse?

Thats cool what you say, if it only applies to the system itself and you leave out acoustics, recordings and your ears. A mediocre recording still benefits from some mild to moderate tone adjustment......Otherwise I kinda agree with you...( for real )

 

My "big rig" doesn't have any, and I don't miss them. In fact I can bypass everything and go completely passive. I do use them in my modest Office system at low listening levels occasionally.

 

Difficult Listening Hour

Some people will be more upset by a drop in resolution, others will be more annoyed by a bad tonal balance. My solution to 'bad tonal balance' is rather radical—a combination of different speaker systems are adjusted into a semblance of proper balance via the use of power resistors. The speakers are as far away as I can manage from rear and side walls while being properly set up for good stereo imaging. And there's a sub, also away from the walls. So I have tweaked the tonal balance by other means while doing what I can to minimize bad room/speaker interaction. Amazing how much better the bass sounds when you can pull the subwoofer at least two feet away from the nearest surface.

Once everything is sorted out for overall tonal balance, even bad recordings sound better. Those that really sound worse probably should be deep-sixed. I survived "Charlie Parker in Paris", no reason why you have to.

I should ad that there are means to improve sound via tonal adjustment. My understanding is the the 'Cello' suite of tone controls really can clean up sound eq issues. But I take "Tone Controls' to be those things you find on old receivers. And it's my experience that those sorts of receivers always sound better if the tone control circuits are disengaged [if at all possible]. Mostly it an issue of their range of tonal adjustments being too limited and that the parts used in such circuits are generally really cheap.