Yamaha AX-596 Amplifier

I purchased this unit to replace an old Tandy amp that failed after many, many years. I'm still into vinyl and expect decent performance. Unfortunately as a standalone unit this does not cut it. There's a lot of emphasis today on the "Pure Direct" sound as Yamaha terms it, bypassing any form of tone control. Making an assumption that all rooms and speakers exhibit equal acoustic properties is folly. Every recording production is different. Being able to tailor the sound is beneficial, as people seemed to realize in the 60's and 70's (eg: the Tandy amp had a midrange tone control also). The variable "Loudness" control on this amp is rather useless in my opinion. It is best left to the "Flat" setting. Unfortunately, graphic equalizers of quality design seem to have gone the way of the dodo, and this is something the AX-596 screams out for.