system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If you turn up the bass, mid, and treble on your stereo-- have you effectively just increased the volume?

Are the gains relative to each other?
gpt
Probably not, because the frequency response of the  bass/mid/treble controls probably don't overlap in a perfectly complementary way.

If your stereo's got a flattish frequency response with bass/mid/treble set to "no cut, no boost" then turning them up will most likely give you a frequency response with three bumps in it.

Beyond that, the devil's in the detail: how does the frequency response of your stereo change just because you turned the volume up, huh? Does the volume knob affect the tone of the sound itself?