Question Tone controls

[Barnaby]

I'm coming to believe this trend to remove treble and bass and balance buttons a few years back was simply a con to make the hifi industry a huge amount of money. I haven't compared these but all of this talk of particular amps sounding warm or clinical etc surely could have been resolved by turning a button a few mm? Does anyone agree. I mean I appreciate there might be theoretical distortion or whatever but surely that's what the "analogue sound" is all about? Anyone agree?

 

[Al ears]

I'm coming to believe this trend to remove treble and bass and balance buttons a few years back was simply a con to make the hifi industry a huge amount of money. I haven't compared these but all of this talk of particular amps sounding warm or clinical etc surely could have been resolved by turning a button a few mm? Does anyone agree. I mean I appreciate there might be theoretical distortion or whatever but surely that's what the "analogue sound" is all about? Anyone agree?

No, not really.
However, I do, in my later years, prefer the inclusion of a balance control and find that if you do need tone controls you've bought the wrong amp / speaker combo......
NOTE: there is already a Tone Controls thread going that was started in 2022.