Review: 500 Series EQ Shootout

The Little Devil EQ sports a devilish red faceplate and offers a 12kHz set high frequency band, a two-position low frequency band (110Hz or 60Hz) as well as two swept mid bands with stepped frequency controls and a 3-position high pass filter. Additional features are high/low Q switches on the mid bands and a true bypass switch for A/B-ing effected and uneffected signal paths. In the devil-may-care style of these units, all gain controls go to a notional ±6dB.

The trademark Chandler sound is noticeable right from the get-go with the Little Devil EQ. There is a noticeable presence boost and forwardness to the sound as soon as the EQ is switched in, even when all EQ bands are approximately set to zero (there are no centre detents). The high and low bands are based on classic Baxandall shelving designs and have a nice quality to them; the highs are sweet and clear and the lows are thick and powerful. The inductor-based midrange bands also sound good to my ears and the high/low Q switch gives a handy choice of more pointed or smooth EQ curves. The high-mid is particularly good for adding attitude and clarity to vocals and guitars around the 1-2kHz range while the low-mid band can really add weight to guitars, drums and vocals.

Like most 500 series EQs, the Little Devil pretty much begs you to explore tone-shaping boosts rather than ‘surgical’ or corrective cuts and has a great ability to breathe life and zest into formerly unspectacular sounds. The high-pass filter is a very useful addition here too and can whisk away unwanted low frequency stodge in a very musical way. While I liked the tone of this unit I wasn’t especially blown away by it as an all-round studio tool as I found the choices of the stepped midrange frequencies a bit unwieldy at times and the limitations of the two set frequencies in the low band made finding the sweet spot on drums or bass very difficult in some contexts. The lowest available step in the midrange being 220Hz, there is also a bit of a gap in the bottom end where a bit of control would have been nice. Minor gripes aside though, the Little Devil does sound pretty sweet and is capable of great tones on the right sources. As an aside it also sounds great when driven hard at the input.

Radial has a habit of making new and useful audio tools, and with the Q3 they’ve taken a refreshingly different approach to the challenge of designing a 500 Series EQ. The Q3 is a fairly unassuming module decked out in somewhat daggy chocolate brown with three stepped pots labelled High Boost, Mid Cut and Low Boost, a gain control and two push button switches — one that engages a high-pass filter below 100Hz and a full bypass. If you figured this was a very basic set of tone controls however, you’d be wrong. Each band of the EQ has a bypass step and 11 other steps that select from a wide variety of different EQ curves and frequencies. For instance, on the High Boost band Step 1 is a +3dB shelving boost that lifts everything above 1kHz, whereas Step 6 is a +9dB bell curve boost centred around 7kHz and Step 9 is a +5dB shelf with a notch at 8kHz. A small toggle switch below each stepped control further boosts the gain and Q of the curve selected (handy for identifying the right setting and for more pronounced effects). The manual is worth poring over as it gives pictorial and technical information on all of these EQ curves in each of the Q3’s three bands, but it is also fun to just play with the switches on a source sound until something takes your fancy. Between the outer boosting bands, the midrange cut band and the bass filter, complex EQ curves are quickly created and it’s a bit of an understatement to say there is no shortage of choice. A staggering 12,000 plus combinations are available from this simple setup.

In use the Q3 is a fascinating beast. It definitely encourages a tweaking and listening mentality and some of the settings really do add personality and mojo to the right source. On kick drum and snare the Q3 can add weight and presence while it’s a bit of a Pandora’s box for guitar and bass tones (in a good way). One of my favourite applications for the Q3 was on vocals where the interplay of the three bands allowed for some really striking vocal tone sculpting in both subtle and more extreme contexts. Having the extra boost from the toggle switches allows for more play and sometimes it’s hard to make up your mind between equally valid settings. Other times I wished I could slide things around a little frequency- or gain-wise and this of course is something the Q3 does not do. I did find the cut-only midrange band a little frustrating when I was looking to tame a particular frequency and couldn’t really find it among the available options, but that’s probably nit-picking to some degree. This is the kind of box that’s either going to kick serious goals or not be particularly useful, depending on the individual source. When it works, the Q3 is a brilliant little equalizer that gives you some really nice sounding options, and I tip my hat to Radial for giving us something a little different to the usual fare.

Lindell is a new company that has made a bit of a splash with its attractive modules and aggressive pricing policy. Based in Poland, the company’s offering here is the quite svelte looking PEX 500, another contemporary take on the famous passive Pultec designs of yore. The faceplate is nicely laid out with continuously variable high and low band boost and cut controls as well as a centre control for the overall width of the EQ curves. Curiously, while the low frequencies can be both boosted and cut at 30Hz, 60Hz and 100Hz à la the Pultec topology, the high frequency boost and cut have different selectable frequencies: 6kHz, 10kHz or 16kHz for boosting and 10 kHz, 15kHz or 20kHz for cutting. This opens up some interesting frequency shaping options, though I did miss the 20kHz boost of some other Pultec-inspired units. Up to 15dB of boost is available via an all discrete passive design featuring inductors and the 990 amplifier. A green backlit switch comes to life when the EQ is engaged and my general first impressions of the Lindell PEX 500 were of a nicely made unit with a bit of style about it.

Firing up the PEX 500, I was immediately aware of a gain increase of something like 3-4dB upon activating the EQ circuit even with all controls on zero. This made A/Bing the unprocessed source a little tricky but I was impressed by the Lindell’s sound overall. While it’s not a real Pultec (they have valves for starters) it does add a bit of spice to many sources. On kick drum a bit of push/pull boosting and cutting at either 30Hz or 60Hz did wonders for some slightly lifeless kit recordings while the high frequency boost at 6kHz or 10kHz brought snares to life in a very pleasing manner. I felt the boost at 16kHz was a little shy (certainly compared to a Pultec) but it did add some polish and sheen to cymbals and brighter acoustic instruments. On vocals the PEX 500 didn’t perhaps quite suit the vocalists I was working with who had very midrange voices, but again I did appreciate the higher boost frequencies. Every one of the EQs we’ve looked at has some drawback or other, and with the PEX 500 it’s the obvious lack of a midrange band. There were a few times I really felt that lack, but with the help of some other outboard or digital EQ to work the midrange area, the Lindell EQ offers both sweetening and grunt at the extremes of the frequency range.

JDK Audio’s contender is the V14, a tasteful dark khaki module with four bands of fully sweepable EQ and a single backlit switch for activating or bypassing the circuit. Like parent-company API’s modules, the V14 utilises dual concentric pots with the smaller inner core controlling EQ frequencies and the outer ring dealing out gain addition and subtraction. The two mid bands are bell curves with overlapping frequencies while the low and high frequency bands are shelving only and range from 30Hz all the way up to 20kHz.

In use I found the dual concentric pots somewhat irritating. For some reason I intuitively felt like the larger ring should control frequency as it is closer to the markings, and I found myself consistently twiddling the wrong knob. Of course this is something prospective buyers would get used to but, more critically, I found that unless careful finger control was used, both knobs could easily move when addressing either one of them. This meant that frequency identification via heavy boosts would sometimes have to be repeated which was, frankly, a pain in the arse. I’m surprised more thought hasn’t gone into the ergonomics of this unit because it would only take a small design tweak of the outer knobs and a bit of a tighter feel on the pots to get rid of this problem and the V14 actually sounds pretty good. The high frequency band has a nice airy quality up above 10kHz and can bring plenty of presence and sizzle to the 6-10kHz range too. The midrange curves are fairly broad, and without any Q control they are somewhat limited, however, they also produced a range of useful and musical results on anything from individual drum tracks to vocals and strummed acoustic guitars and basses. Down below, the bottom end on the V14 is nice and robust and does wonders for thin bass and drum tracks. On the mix bus the V14 was good for subtle tone shaping and I thought it particularly shone on vocals where the gentle control of the midrange plus the air up high made it a useful tool indeed.

The PEQ500 sports the classy black looks of the JLM line and is a two-band EQ that also tips its hat firmly in the Pultec direction. The design is discrete and fully passive with two proprietary JLM 99V opamps and a huge output transformer taking pride of place on the main circuit board. The low band features 12 stepped frequencies ranging from 10Hz to 300Hz and smaller boost and cut controls that, when both dialled in, create a bump and notch effect. The high band has 12 stepped frequencies ranging from 1kHz to 25kHz, boost and cut controls and an additional Q control that can be pushed in to change the bell curve to a high shelf (Q controls the shape of the shelf’s rise/fall). Two small toggle switches at the top of the unit engage hard bypass and a high frequency filter which shelves off frequencies above 20kHz, 10kHz or 5kHz à la the original Pultec design.

From the get-go I found this EQ a real pleasure to use. The JLM is a little more expensive than most of the other EQs reviewed here but the quality on offer is undeniable. There is an effortless power in this module that really allows you to carve sounds in a creative way. The bottom end is big and rich while the highs are airy and sweet and the addition of the top end Q control, shelving option and filtering brings a lot of flexibility to what is always a critical area. On kick drum and bass the super low frequencies such as 30Hz and 40Hz are surprisingly useable and deliver a mighty wallop. On snares I found a gentle addition of 60Hz or 80Hz added satisfying weight to the sound while it was easy to voice the amount of rattle and sizzle in the treble area with the frequencies from 8kHz upwards. Adding 25kHz to cymbals and overheads was also a very gratifying tonal experience. The PEQ500 also delivered great results on guitars and vocals. Again the one drawback of the Pultec-based design is the lack of control of the true midrange area. Having said that, the options up to 300Hz and down to 1kHz do extend the traditional topology of the Pultec approach and definitely gives the unit some extra flexibility. Adding sheen and weight to sources is this module’s bread and butter and it does it in a satisfyingly powerful, rich and musical manner.