So I got my custom build yesterday and am still exploring the sound and figuring where it best fits within my system.
The sound:
So far, I'm impressed. The first 24 hours is as 'honeymoon' as it gets of course. Yet I'm quite sober and everything the REQ does sounds lovely and natural, large boosts still don't sound EQ'd. You just get more or less of instruments and ranges , and I haven't heard anything harsh, muddy or filtered-sounding come out of it even with ridiculous settings. Things just sound correct, without any trace of processing until I hit bypass. After going back and forth a few times I'd realize maybe 1dB was all I needed, not 2.5-3. Or 5. But hey 5 sounds great too. It was almost confusing at first, and I'll to need to use restraint. I've used plenty of other great high-end EQs too which can sound nice with wild boosting, but the Buzz in particular just goes so effortlessly to the limits (although mine has a reduced range).
The highs are super sweet all over, even when boosting 11-20kHz with a tight bell. There's this instant sense of openness and height when boosting up there. Not too sharply focused or 'electric' the way some EQs get. Buzz's air boost combined with Michelangelo's is insane. Great texture. Using the shelves with low-mid slope it's been really easy to highlight detail or bring forward some clarity and detail in percussion and cymbals/bells/tambourines/etc. without making things bright or edgy. I think this is partially a benefit of the transformers I have in mine.
The mids are also special for me. The upper mids are sweet and organic sounding, the ... middle mids? avoid sounding nasal and honky, and the lower mids do something I haven't heard before. Cutting in the 250-440 range on a piano track was like moving the piano back a bit further away or turning down the close mics, increasing both clarity and ambience. Boosting there gave a nice, natural sense of proximity - the piano became convincingly larger and closer. I remember reading something like this in another review (Ed Littman's?), and now it makes sense.
I've never used a REQ with the passive low card, but I did try comparing the character of boosts down at 80-110-135 on the low mid band with 90-120-145 on the low band. Definitely happy to have this active card for its bells. Low frequency cuts work really well for clearing something like overbearing 60-80Hz buildups without sacrificing weight. I'm in the habit of using digital EQs for clearing up the low end, but I'm thinking low trim in the analog realm is my new jam.
Another fine surprise - the saturation settings are more useful than I anticipated. I figured they may be a bit over the top in terms of distortion level or possibly compromise the top too much - shutting it down or at least dampening it and bringing the sides in a bit. On the contrary, a few of them are 'subtle enough' and add helpful low end solidity and a tiny, usable glue effect to the whole picture. The sixth position did something really nice to a piano and vocal. The first two with the big bass peak bring huge low end weight, something that will be fun to have in my toolbox.
I haven't used the HPF much yet. It does indeed cut lows though - always a good sign. I'll play with that more later and see how it reigns in that transformer low end love and deep diabolical shelving boosts.
I don't hear any unwanted loss of detail or transient energy, but mine isn't standard inside.
The build:
I started with the MEA specification - mastering edition with Elmas and the active low frequency cards.
Tim helped shorten or hard-wire connections where possible (without making it impossible to assemble or service) as he's done for several others by request. This would be a good time to thank guys like Matt Gray for helping forward the development of the REQ and sharing his progress, and Tim for being so agreeable as to work with me on the customization.
I asked for a gain range of +/-5dB, with 0.25dB steps for the first dB. I guessed that would offer plenty of total push or pull with this EQ and so far it feels like a perfect amount. Enough to really bring a dramatic improvement to mixes, but not totally lose the plot. Also I like being able to use the full range of the Elmas, it would be a shame to only play the first 4-5 clicks most of the time. The first 0.25dB stop is really subtle and was basically an experiment. I wanted to see if it would be usable to add texture or subtly de-harsh a wide-bandwidth area without noticeably changing the frequency response, just by getting the filter and amplifier involved. I'm not sure how often I will use that, but I'm already happy to have the 0.75dB position. I've never worked with an analog EQ featuring precision finer than 0.5dB, and just earlier today I felt like a high boost was too much with 1dB, but not really helping with 0.5dB. Nice. It's back to 0.5dB steps beyond 1dB, until the last switch position which jumps from 4 to 5dB. I do a fair amount of mixing too, and I can tell the full 5 will be used pretty often. The REQ makes for a gorgeous vocal EQ...
Now perhaps the most interesting part - I asked Tim to special-order some amorphous core Lundahls for the alternate output pair. These do have slightly less headroom than the 1517s a few other guys have, especially in the sub bass region, but it doesn't look problematic for the levels I'm typically running. Hitting it with +15-16dBu can definitely hard clip subby kick drums though, so I'll just need to be careful. Also worth noting is that my transformers are inserted on the output card, so they're now bypass-able when the system buttons are out. It's a nice touch especially in a fixed-order chain.
Last but not least I went for a bit of a makeover. Black front plate, white text for the contrast. The circular buzz logo got a bit of pale blue as did the alternate 2.5x frequency markings and high shelf slopes for readability. It was looking too busy in all white. I took the slope label and markings off the low band, as the active cards have fixed slope shelving. Knob caps are all gloss black. I'm more into matte in general but it's cool seeing the reflections in them.
Build quality seems excellent. I'm eager to take a look under the hood. Exterior looks great and feels great to use. The Elmas are perfect. If I change anything, it may be color-coding the knobs. I haven't thought about it much yet but there aren't too many options available - standard blue, white, red, green, and yellow. Also I was poking around online to see if other people have colored theirs and now can't un-see that beautiful black one at The Audiolab - it's going to be hard to not just copy that color arrangement.
Oh and it gets hot.
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