Tone controls- to use or not?

I've come to the sad realisation that my 40-year old ears no longer have their original upper frequency response.

It is not a severe problem. Treble above 12KHZ is of very little of interest anyway in music.

If you are suffering much lower down in the midrange then you must see a doctor. Use this to check to see if your hearing loudness curve is "normal" - it should look like the typical equal loudness contour - if it does not then see a doctor.

Don't be surprised if you can't hear the 16 KHz tone - most people over 40 can't.

"Yes but...the mix engineer and mastering engineer has already monkeyed around so much with what you hear that this "purity" goal becomes a "mute" point."

Final product of this Monkeying around is what performer approved and want me to hear. If I cannot change (adjust) tone at the concert then why should I be able to do this at home?

Fixing shortcomings of the system (or room) with tone controls is not a good idea.

there is an implicit assumption that that the engineer and the performer want the purchaser of a recording to hear "something". i disagree. the recording is a stement from both engineer and performer, as to what they want to hear. they don't care what you hear, because they have no idea what your stereo system is.

therefore, it is not logical to assume that altering the sound of the recording is not a good idea. it is neither good nor bad. it is just an idea.

i think it is reasonable to expect a listener to "hear" the recording any way he/she desires, without regard to accuracy of transmission.

the problem with this hobby is that there are too many prescrip[tions as to how one should listen to one's recordings and too much dogmatism as too what is good and what is not good.

it's all subjective and a matter of preference.

accuracy still has meaning. however, some audiophiles are not motivated to achieve it.

as a side note, i will purchasing a decware amplifier which is supplied with an attenuator. i intend to use it. the designer has indicated that he uses it as well.

half of the fun in this hobby is tinkering. tone controls is one way to tinker. the other half is enjoying the music.

MrTennis said : "half of the fun in this hobby is tinkering. tone controls is one way to tinker. the other half is enjoying the music."

Tinkering is fun in the domain that can possibly improve the sound

In this case modifying the tone will lead to bad result in 98% of the case

And in this will damage his hears even more

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By the way old orchestra's conductor don't use a tone corrector lol

Neither the old people with ear damges in the assistance

And they seems to enjoy the concert though

Go figure...