Equalizer in a Hi Fi system

Pete, I have info from Mike, if you’ll reach back out to me in private 

I have been demoing the Wes Audio NGTubeEQ the last 3 days. It is Uber expensive but what you get is a super clean sounding unit with all the musicality of my Charter Oaks, in other words amazing SQ. It is finicky at first as a full parametric with a gazillion permutations on how to set it up. I won’t lie. It has been 3 full days of intensive tinkering to get it dialed in. Now that I have it dialed in I can say it sounds utterly amazing. As it should for 6 grand. But the greatest thing about this unit is that you can give it huge bass boosts if necessary and it won’t distort the line like the CO sometimes would with loud compressed rock recordings. For 6 K the Wes is bulletproof against this kind of distortion. Love it!

And a big congratulations goes out to @petieboy12003 for his purchase of that 2018 Charter Oak which he and I verified that Mike Deming made. I now have played with enough EQs, including the most recent Wes Audio, to say with assurance that Pete just bought one of the very best sounding hardware equalizers on the planet. As I suspected and have now proven you have to spend 6 K to get something that sounds like my beloved CO. No wonder I’ve been so in love with this piece for over 10 years!

And a big thank you once again to tlcocks who single-handedly is responsible my latest audio acquisition Charter Oak PEQ-1

Can`t wait to hear CO in my 118db horn system. I am expecting huge failure (noise?) or either huge success, due to several reasons, mainly since there is so much inherent/available headroom within this system.  

That Wes EQ just looks STUNNING one of the best looking pieces ever imo and with so many features and possible settings. If sounds on par with CO, as Tim states, and i for one believe him, then this really must be a sure upgrade for him. Albeit a bit pricey but hey...

So congrats to you too Tim! 

Yes, the NGTubeEQ is something. I am currently listening to Alice In Chains - Dirt on it. I have chosen with this album, as I’ve always done with it, to get very aggressive with the U shape. I’ve never though enjoyed cuts with any equalizer, either in bands or master gain. I have always found that that sounds worse than boosts with a high quality EQ. This new EQ is no different in this respect. Essentially I build two tone dials with the EQ. Bass and treble. That’s how I like to do it. Others may do it differently. The challenge with this method is clean boosts without distortion or blurred mids from phase shift. My CO has always done this unbelievably well. Now back to the album Dirt. The Wes does it even better with extreme settings. There is zero distortion that I hear. Zero phase shift that I hear. The best way I can state it is it’s as if the band took a time machine to the modern day, and mixed and mastered all over again in the studio with one of the best studio engineers. The album is modernized. It is rich, layered, textured, nuanced. It is full throated. The mids have taken zero damage. IT DOESN’T SOUND EQUALIZED. No artificial etch. No blurring. No phase shift. It sounds DEEP too. Not 2-D like many digital algorithms impose. Or cheaper analog solutions impose. THIS EQ IS THE REAL DEAL. I’m fairly flabbergasted. It sounds BETTER in all audiophile respects when engaged as compared to true bypass. Is it louder?  Yes, because I’ve not cut master gain, which even on this unit denigrates SQ. The key point here is thankfully I don’t have to because 6 grand buys you rails of power and massive headroom. Oh, and all comments are wrt the SS output. Not tube output. Don’t like the tube output. Stock tubes are JJ. I can and will do better and one day roll them. I’m in no hurry though, with what I’m hearing!