Equalizer in a Hi Fi system

jtcf

Thanks for the reply. I looked at it.  I am not sure though.  I looked at the specs and S/N ratio of 100db is not that great.  If you put your ear right next to your tweeters (as in like practically touching them) with your ear, do you hear ANY hiss whatsoever?  Please be honest! 

I ask because I am doubtful that the eq would be silent in that manner. Currently I hear absolutely no hiss whatsoever when my eq's are out of the loop if I touch my ear on the tweeters, but all the components have higher S/N ratios of minimum 127db or above.  27 decibels is a lot and perhaps the difference between hiss or no hiss.  I am going to buy several once I find the right one and want to be 100% sure to avoid the hassle of returns.

@ellajeanelle , if I may comment. I know you’re talking to @jtcf. Putting your ear up to the tweeter and hearing hiss that’s low enough shouldn’t be a deal breaker. If you have quality hi fi gear with low noise floor a slight uptick in hiss from an equalizer may be acceptable. Particularly if the music sounds BETTER with the EQ and the hiss is NOT HEARD when listening to, for example, quiet passage in classical work of well recorded piano solo. Yes, with my CO I hear low level hiss vs bypass when ear is literally on tweeter. But so what?  When I play classical or piano record fairly loud (like 50% on my Bryston amp) I DON’T hear hiss from listening position. Can toggle EQ in and out and no obvious change in noise. Low is low. It’s worth the gain in tonality, harmonics and timbre you get from EQing. Look, I had a dead silent phono pre that I got rid of for a noisier Graham Slee Ascension phono pre that sounds way way better. It’s the same thing. In the end, only you can decide how much hiss is acceptable. I play Yiruma great piano recordings for people and they are amazed at what I can do to improve the way that instrument sounds through my system with high end analog balanced EQ. Remember balanced when the music is playing helps tremendously with noise floor also. If I put my ear at the speaker while playing music will I hear any added hiss?  Really doubtful I’ll hear or notice. But I might get tinnitus or an earache!

@tlcocks Thanks for checking on that PEQ-1.... Yeah I had a noise problem pop up on mine.  There's an op-amp chip responsible for each EQ band and I swapped them around until I found the offending ones.  I moved the noisy one from the 2k band to the Sub band and the noise wasn't noticeable down there.  I got Mike to send me several new op-amps and I replaced them myself, rather than send the unit back.  I also rewired the outputs, as my unit was inverting phase.... a terrible thing in a studio when you are trying to do parallel processing!  Mike trusted me by then, and told me what I needed to do.   

@tlcocks 

As for stringing chains of processors together, if you read or watch anything about mixers TODAY, you can bet they are chaining digital plugins, and the noise & distortion simply does not add up like with analog gear.  Also... those long chains are typically on individual instruments or group buses to achieve a particular effect.  It would be rare to put more than about 3-4 things on the final stereo bus.   

Although... have you heard modern mixes??  They mostly suuuuck, and the overuse of processing is a culprit. Whether analog or digital, they will (and I will) put several processors on the final stereo bus.

Take for example a typical rock mix.... I might have 50-70 tracks to work with.  (not all playing at once though) But 6-10 tracks of drum mics go to the drum bus. Bass Mic & DI go to a bass bus.  Maybe 4-8 or more electric guitar parts to Egtr bus.  Acoustic guitars to ACG bus.  Synths to Synth Bus (could be from 2 to 20 tracks).  Lead vocal is likely doubled or with harmonies to LVOX bus.  Background vocals to a BGV bus....  Oh yeah... let's not forget an FX return bus for all the delays and reverbs!  So I've counted 8 stereo buses in this example.... and each bus has its own processing on it.... typically at least an EQ and a compressor.  All these busses then sum into the 2-BUS, which might have, for example, a Tape Emulator,  a bus compressor or a mulitband compressor, an EQ, and then a final limiter/enhancer.  The order of all these FX also matters.... it matters a LOT!  As does the gain-staging... how hard you hit each of these processors.   Also don't forget that each individual track can and most likely does have some processing on it.  Usually at least an EQ.... sometimes 5 or 6 things.   This is why mixing is so much fun!

Some room correction might be a better solution.