Looking for pair of 500 EQs for mixbuss and tracking

I really like the LH95 pair on mix buss 👍🏻. You can push them a bit to get some really cool tone/saturation. Really sweet high end and huge lows as well when needed.

I would skip the TKilizer if you are looking for color. It’s a great box but quite transparent. I had a pair of the Harrison’s for a while and couldn’t get excited about them, I didn’t care for the box tone.

The Iron Age stuff is great. RND 551’s could work nicely. JLM PEQ’s are great if you want a Pultec-type thing. I used to have a pair of Five Fish PEQ’s that I shouldn’t have sold…Those new Cranborne EQ’s/exciter things seem pretty interesting too. I’m sure there are 15 other good options out there. Good luck with your eq quest!

AML ezP1A is a pretty solid Pultec type equaliser. I have a pair, and can't praise them enough. £345 for the kit version, or an additional £100 ready built and tested.

Each unit is 2 spaces wide to accomodate all the rotary switches, a chunky inductor and 3 transformers. The double width leads to a (as 500 units go) spacious panel layout where it is easy to visually match channel settings.

That Wes Audio Prometheus looks to be very nice.

Proper Pultec passive inductor design and instant digital plugin recall, what’s not to love.


I also use the RMS 755 on my mix bus.
I love that compressor (it’s definitely my not so secret weapon)

I use mine before a Thermionic Phoenix Mastering Plus and Thermionic Swift EQ - two expensive tube pieces that the RMS 755 matches in quality and bandwidth without breaking into sweat - the Rolls RMS 755 is imho an absolutely superb bit of kit.

For anyone wanting a similar set up on a smaller physical scale and smaller budget then personally I’d look at the Wes Audio Titan rack and use his Dione (VCA) Rhea (vari mu) Prometheus (Pultec) fabulous sound quality and instant plugin recall.

The guy behind Wes Audio is Poland’s equivalent to the late great Dave Hill.

Another genius designer imho.

Yeah, I forgot about the 551s. How do they compare to the LH95s?

Really happy with Tree Audio eqs. (Hard to find now, but the earlier versions, the "Brats" I believe are the same - with the Inward Connections branding.) Also, for very clean with a lot of uses - the Zahl Eq1 is fantastic. (I only have the Iron Age V2 and love it - but it is a rack unit.)

It doesn't use a DOA, but it is a discrete transistor design. I am not super good at reading schematics, but it looks more of the Neve school to my untrained eyes. There is a schematic on one of the last pages of the build guide.

Hi Colin,

Quick question, is it possible to easily shift the frequencies of the low end boost slightly (e.g.) 30 Hz and 60 Hz to 40 and 70 Hz? (more in line with the solid state Pultecs)  

LH95s again. They open up the mix nicely, top always sounds natural, bottom is awesome with plenty to spare

Maag EQ4s are a standard for mix buss and are stepped. As a tracking EQ, its good but a little less utilitarian than other EQs due to the fixed frequencies. Besides vocals, where they are most commonly loved, I find it to be good on kick, bass, and acoustic guitar.

If you like 550As, I actually think they sound fantastic across a mix. I have a 5500 as well, but while it may be more useful as a mix buss EQ, the box tone isn't quite as cool as the 550As. I often just run signal through them, since its very rare I'd be boosting 2dB on the buss, but I suppose if you mix into a low and top boost, they could be fine.

I'm the same with my API's, but that's mostly as they're already being used elsewhere by the time I get to the bus.  I only demoed the LH95 and like the 550's I was using it elsewhere (amazing on bass), I seconded it as I thought it was a monster sound in 500 series.  

The LTL Pentode 2 colour modules aren't as flexible as having dedicated EQ's, they have high and low shelves set with jumpers and tiny pots.  When I realized my Silver Bullet's eq section was always parked with the same settings I set the Pentode 2 to the same curve, the Superfilter handles the HPF.  For my workflow it's great, but I'm also not doing heavy EQ lifting at the mixbus level, just some sauce.

I'll make a deal on four channels or two V2s