Adding Tone Controls?

Oh yeah, that's a smart way to go about it - not! Interconnects and speaker wires have very subtle effects if any at all. And they would always be in the signal path, thus "tailoring" the sound for all sources. Not to mention the hassle of swapping them in and out and the time and money spent purchasing them only to find out they didn't do what was needed.

And if you're buying interconnects and speaker wires that have multi-decibel effects upon certain portions (frequencies) of the signal, you're buying very poorly made products. EQ is the way to go, plain and simple...

-RW-

Rlwainwright has suggested your best approach.

Tone controls are band aids that have no place in a well thought out and designed system.

Shakey

To each his own. I am happy to have them. Its the software that is the problem, not the system. At least that's my take on reality.

"My system sounds wonderful when playing well recorded jazz, classical, or "audiophile approved" material. Unfortunately, mass market pop frequently sounds horrible, with screechy splashy highs. It's obviously recorded with a built in bias to be played on car radios or lo-fi mp3s."

Welcome to the club. Your situation is very common; its one of the negative aspects of having high resolution audio equipment. There are a lot of different things you can do to fix the problem. I believe the best, and most effective fix, is to get an EQ.

"Oh for heaven's sake, he's already listening to abysmally recorded albums and you're gonna worry about the supposedly deleterious effects of an equalizer? Some times I wonder if some of you guys made it thru grade school."

I couldn't agree more. I have an EQ that I use for the same reason. You may want to look at a Behringer Ultracurve PRO DEQ2496. I have one and get great results with it.