Tone controls- to use or not?

The term 'audiophile' means 'audio lover'. So goof off with it to your heart's desire :)

A good number of tone controls, when set to flat, are not in fact flat at all- there is usually some perturbation on account of the controls. In addition, an additional stage of gain is required to drive the tone control circuit. Unless switched out (and even the switching circuit can have an audible artifact) these things will contribute to a loss of bandwidth, detail and increased distortion.

Hence, many 'purist' 'audio lovers' do without, in the quest for greater transparency/immediacy to the music. So, to refine the definition, there is a difference between an audiophile and a purist (purist being a subset of audiophile).

But I have to ask- because I don't know- if you have hearing loss (like many of us over 40/45 years) how is it that tone controls will help? Won't that make the experience of the recorded music that less real (because you could never hear it that way live)? Or is that not important?

I think the problem here is that the term 'good equalizer' in this day and age is a bit oxymoronic. Back in the old days, Harmon Kardon had a preamp call the Citation One, which employed switched tone controls, i.e. the tone controls were built up out of rotary switches. This allowed them to be truly flat when set to the flat position. I've not seen a modern EQ unit that had that sort of attention to detail.

I've had my hands on some fairly good units, both the analog and digital Accuphase units, which are arguably amoungst the cream of the crop in equalizers. Despite serious room anomolies that the EQ units could correct (somewhat, there was a bass node that they couldn't touch), the system sounded remarkably better using no EQ at all... by 'better': more impact, greater soundstage, more detail, smoother overall sound...

Eldartford, I have yet to hear a Behringer that I'd want to put in my system! All of them I have heard so far are easily surpassed by other manufacturers for not a lot of extra money. My impression so far is that they target the entry-level semi-pro market. Is that impression incorrect?

The Accuphase that I used was the DG-28 digital room correction unit. It wasn't cheap either! The analog unit, once set to the same settings, sounded better (nor was it cheap; for either unit you could have bought 3 or 4 Behringers). I know that price does not define everything, but OTOH Accuphase isn't junk either :)

Taking them out of the system easily allowed me to reveal the sonic fingerprint of either one.

So- does the Behringer sound *better* than the Accuphase, despite being built to a price as opposed to Accuphase, wherein price is really not a concern?? IOW, has the SOTA of room correction progressed that much in the last 6-7 years? Or am I to surmise that the equipment that I am used to using is that much more transparent, that things like this as a result have a more obvious sonic character?

If I had to guess it would be the latter, but I've not heard the Behringer stuff in the last 3-4 years...