It depends. I’m lucky enough to own a high end amplifier, that doesn’t have tone controls, and matching speakers. It sounds amazing in its puristic state.

PEQ is kind of the modern EQ…Bass and treble knobs are kind of crude but to each their own.

The loudness button has real value for quiet listening.

Just do what pleases you. The old school audio obsessed purists would have everything flat from source to speaker so you hear as near to the original recording as possible. I suspect this started when most rich people listened to classical music.

All I would say is you might want the option to turn off the tone controls so you get the best of both worlds. Yamaha’s pure direct is a fairly extreme example as it seems to stop everything (I think it turned off my toaster the other day) but just a ‘defeat’ button would suffice.

EQ is having flexibility to change the sound to fit your preferences, and the engineer who mixed and mastered the music you listen to isn’t the only one allowed to impart their own choices on the music.

Those who eschew tone controls for “purity” are kidding themselves and living in denial.

You want the music to sound “like the engineer or the artists intended”? Then, you’d better go listen in the mastering studio, because there’s no way your home system sounds anything like that studio.