Why does the EDGE A not have tone controls?

The decision not to include tone controls for the EDGE A was made in order to ensure it produces an unprocessed, accurate, natural sound that is as faithful to the original recording as possible.

We are confident without the controls the EDGE A will deliver undiscovered layers of detail in your music as well as offering superlative sound-staging.

Our Technical Director Dominic Baker spoke with Financial Times on this issue for the article 'Whatever happened to the graphic equaliser?'

Speaking about EDGE, he says: "The purist in us does not want you playing around with bass, middle and treble controls… Tone controls came into existence in the days of cassettes, and the very poor sound quality they gave. There’s good reason today to let the music sound how it left the recording studio, which CD and digital allows."