What is the purpose of bass and treble controls in Stereo amplifier.

[raghupb]

Amps with tone controls allow for some compensation when there is varying quality source material and room effect.
Personally, given a choice of amps, I would go for one with tone control.
Many amp companies did away with these essential user controls for the sake of reducing cost.
Some even peddled these control-less amps as audiophile or pure grade.
There is no such system, yet. Each ones source material, tastes and room are different.

Cheers,
Raghu

 

[raghupb]

With the controls you are altering the recordings.

Too much emphasis is placed on quality of recordings.
A recording is a product of musicians, sound engineers, marketing guys and what-not.
There is no such thing as a perfect recording. But there are definitely good/bad/ugly recordings.

The user/consumer needs to decide how much emphasis on the content vs sound.
Many on the forum here will agree that an average recording on an average system sounds good after a tipple or two
This is because, we stop listening to the sound of music, and start listening to the content in music.
Weird how the brain works; when sober it is nitpicking, when "relaxed" it is more accommodating (barring bass boom or screeches).

Cheers,
Raghu