Primare has never offered tone controls during its nearly 35 years in existence. This is a direct outcome of our philosophy to present the audio signal without alteration of any kind.
This industry wide design trend effectively began in the mid-1970s with products like Mark Levinson's ground-breaking JC2 and ML-1 preamplifiers that claimed superior performance resulting from a simpler, more direct "straight-line" signal path made possible in part due to the elimination of non-essential circuitry, like tone controls - essentially more closely aligned with the concept of "straight wire with gain."
The idea that tone controls were rarely used was related to the realisation that tone controls, even the most sophisticated parametric equalizers, were never completely sophisticated enough to make the subtle tonal changes desired without the resulting sound seeming unnatural and artificial. Even with today's advanced DSP, it requires careful implementation to achieve the desired results.
That said, we will be including Dirac DSP processing in our forthcoming home theatre products, with the thought of possibly adding that to any new range of stereo models we produce in the future, although it must be noted that we cannot be certain of being able to provide this as an update to our current range of Prisma products.
In the meantime, one option is to use the DSP options available with Roon media management software, either now with Chromecast and AirPlay as endpoints or in the not-too-distant future with Roon Ready (RAAT) functionality once we have certifications for all Prisma models as we have now for the NP5 Prisma MK2. Roon provides a very sophisticated parametric equaliser, as well as options for loading filter designs into its program that are proving to be very effective in overcoming some room challenges that speaker placement alone may not be able to effectively solve. Well worth considering Roon for that reason, as well as for its truly remarkable and capable class leading stored and streamed digital music playback features.
https://primare.net/network-technology/roon-ready/
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