Equalizer in a Hi Fi system


Just curious to hear everyone’s opinions on using an equalizer in a high end hi fi system. Was at work tonight and killing time and came across a Schitt Loki max $1500 Equalizer with some very good reviews. What are some of the pros / Benefits and cons in using one. Just curious. BTW. I’m talking about a top of the line. Hi end equalizer. Mostly to calm some high frequencies and some bad recordings. 

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@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!

Room correction has NOTHING TO DO with tone adjustment to personal preferences. Nothing. Please read the thread for more info on this. These recent posts are more about the merits of pro balanced analog gear for tonal adjustments. For room correction go back many pages and read @mijostyn et al posts.