having recently seen the latest Schitt eqs, i want one (6 band, motorised pots and remote, presets, what’s not to like), and i don’t really have need for one since i have digital eqs if i really felt the need.
still want one though 
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I saw one of the old school 12 band slider EQ’s the other day and thought it would be cool to have one in the rack even if it wasn’t connected. I had one back in the '70’s and it was a lot of fun.
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I have an old BSR equalizer from years ago that whenever I connected it into the system not as active in the system, but just connected to the “tape out” connection, still somehow negatively affected the sound quality
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I am sure my old one affected the SQ also but it was the best system a newlywed could afford and a little THC helped the cause.
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A significant number of integrated amps have a passive preamp section, so something with low impedance connected to the tape out would be expected to negatively impact the main sound.
Whether you consider a passive preamp section in an integrated amp as a bug or a feature depends on your viewpoint (and what / how many things you want to hook up to the tape out)
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For some recordings that have painfully etched treble, like some Miles Davis when he used his mute, I will add my speaker grills, or add some extra capacitive loading at the phono stage—sort of my tone controls.
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Not surprising, the frequency spectrum of a trumpet played with a Harmon mute (Miles’ favorite) exceeds 50kHz. And look at all the energy between 6kHz and 12kHz, as well centered around 20kHz.
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The designer of my preamp won’t even install a mute switch as he feels it degrades the signal. If I ever asked him to modify it with tone controls chaos would surly ensue🙂
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Condiments are the life of good beef, sea food, salads,
baked potatos, and desserts have toppings …so
Why oppose tone controls…? no reason whatsoever…
just strong opinions…
Tone controls are the good sauce which enhances the music.
Best wishes
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Yes. Tone controls have that stigma of being over-used. But at the same time all of us are guilty of using different interconnect, different preamps, different poweramps, different room treatments, different power cables, different speaker cables and power regenerators in order to get what we perceive as better sound, which are all really forms of tone controls.
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Exactly, precisely and right on statement…
Best wishes
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Yep, my system in my room is one big tone control
Having knobs allows people permission to like what they like!
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As has been said, people choose things like power cables, interconnects and speaker cables to alter the tonal balance of their system. Most of us will have a digital source, probably feeding a dac such as a Directstream. For sources that are PCM based (e.g. CD player/server) I think for the small cost involved in buying a Minidsp DDRC-22D and playing with parametric equalisers, great improvements may well be possible (Dirac can also do other clever things in software). I use a DEQX (digital equaliser and crossover) so all sorts of equalisation and correction is done digitally before three coax digital streams hit my active system (which uses multiple Directstreams). People don’t know what’s possible unless they try it (although it takes a lot of trial and error to set up multiple parametric equalisers and I suspect a lot of people will give up before achieving useful gains).
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The true depth of musical expression can only be experienced through circuits which do not try to artificially manipulate the signal in any way. Proprietary Direct Signal Path Technology (DSPT) is inspired by the goal to minimize the amount of time music signal spends in circuit, so that it retains the energy and life inherent in the original material.
Circuits, selection of parts, and layout are optimized so that all unnecessary compensating circuitry can be eliminated and the simplest circuitry can suffice, thus causing the least signal degradation
A blurb from
Masataka Tsuda chief designer - Concert Fidelity
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No secret about it. I want a Loki max. I am not worthy…
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I used to have a 31 band per channel EQ, time alignment, and electronic crossovers in my old system in my car. I have only recently been able to match my musical enjoyment of that system in my home system all while spending more money and chasing essentially cable… cough… cough… expensive tone controls.
If tone is bad… music is bad… emotion is gone. Not sure what the point is to a “pure” piece of crap. Almost no one can match the setup in the studio even if that is the goal. So we put our speakers in suboptimal locations and we’re told by the cult to listen to it straight even though it sounds like garbage. In my experience if you can’t get the speakers in the room, the midrange is lifeless and midbass is non-existent. I will take artificially boosted midbass and midrange any day over an unrealistic “pure” system that you can’t crank over 80db due to tonal imbalance.
I think there is a big ruse here… don’t buy an EQ so you can control what you’re doing. Spend $10,000 on cables that give you our sound and because you can’t modify anything you will be unhappy forever and always have the upgrade bug.
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loki max - that was the one!
don’t need it, want one anyway
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I’ve thought about a Lokius just to experiment, but its bargain status would be negated by the need for another pair of XLR cables.
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