I must admit, I do sleep at night, though my preamp is set to "bypass" the tone controls.
Message from the Past: We were never against tone controls
For those of us who started being audiophiles a very long time ago, we have a message for you all:
We were never against tone controls. We were against poor sounding tone controls, and many of them were. From bass / treble nobs to 1/3 octave equalizers, they all were almost universally garbage.
That was decades ago. Now things are in some cases much better, or at least, not nearly as bad sounding as a poor recording. Stop using guidelines from the 1980's to decide what to do.
You are not obligated to sit through a performance without adjusting the music to suite your tastes. It’s OK to boost the bass, or turn down the treble for your liking. You have all the permission you need.
We were never against tone controls. We were against poor sounding tone controls, and many of them were. From bass / treble nobs to 1/3 octave equalizers, they all were almost universally garbage.
That was decades ago. Now things are in some cases much better, or at least, not nearly as bad sounding as a poor recording. Stop using guidelines from the 1980's to decide what to do.
You are not obligated to sit through a performance without adjusting the music to suite your tastes. It’s OK to boost the bass, or turn down the treble for your liking. You have all the permission you need.