Speck ASC EQs

[Russian Recording]

didn't find too much on them using the search function... so anyone with some experience? Id like something that has some character to it, but can also be somewhat surgical. Im wondering if these will do the trick.

Otherwise it's a pair of Lil FreQ$ (speak up if you've used these too...)
mike

[cgarges]

Surgical and character? Check out the Ashly SC-66. They'll ring for days and the bandwidth can get quite narrow. They're neat little (BIG) boxes. I've not heard the Specks, but it's been my understanding that they're not the most colorful thing in the world (which can be cool, too).

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[joel hamilton]

Surgical and character? Check out the Ashly SC-66. They'll ring for days and the bandwidth can get quite narrow. They're neat little (BIG) boxes. I've not heard the Specks, but it's been my understanding that they're not the most colorful thing in the world (which can be cool, too).

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

I had one of those ashly's for years. Totally fun. The fact that you can switch the frequencies in and out of the path altogether is pretty awesome. Like a super ghetto manley massive passive....

The ashly drives beautifully too.

I am actually about to sell a pair of Filtek/BFE EQ's from a telefunken console. They totally rock. I have 4 of them, and I only really need a pair...

When I was searching for info on them online, I kept bumping into euro mastering places... They are all detented and quite surgical, or you can switch to bell curve and just hit them really hard for color. They require a 24 volt power supply that I am not selling, But I DO have the schematics and documentation for them...

I am gonna put them in the Buy/sell/ trade right now...

[fremitus]

Lil Freq's kick ass. Seriously clean parametric eq, but with the dynamic eq you can do de-essing or a nice tailoring of the high end. DI input is pretty nice to have there too.

They are silly accurate too. I want to check out the Speck's too tho. Hope someone posts some opinions on them.

[cgarges]

Like a super ghetto manley massive passive....

The ashly drives beautifully too.

You're not wrong about that. Somebody should start making those again and calling them that. They'd make millions.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Russian Recording]

The fact that you can switch the frequencies in and out of the path altogether is pretty awesome.

Some of the Orban EQs have this feature too, as does the Lil FreQ (does anyone else hate that name?). Pretty useful.

The Ashley seems interesting.

Chris,
I've heard that the Specks are pretty clean too, but the ones with the transformer option are a little more "flavorful". For my needs precision is a priority, and some character is a plus. I guess more importantly it can't sound awful. Ive found that most EQs sound awful.

Has anyone ever tried the NTI EQ-3 linear phase EQ? that thing is astounding.

mike

[joel hamilton]

Not directed at you , M. Angry Russian, but I am HATING the idea that xformers are "colorful" and not just GOOD!

If xformers are colorful, then so is tape, so is a microphone, so is wire, so is a console, so is a speaker....

The fact that xformers have this weird stigma as the things that saturate and make things colorful... Totally weird.

Certain things sound MUSICAL, certain things sound sterile.... I know we need these words to describe VERY subjective things, but advertisers would have you thinking "throw away your crazy neve mic pres and your U47, we made something without those crazy transformers that REALLY makes you awesome!!!"

Anyway,
That Ashly is really fun, and so are ANY of the old german cassette sized EQ's, like telefunken. neumann, filtek, klangfilm, etc...etc...

[cgarges]

I guess more importantly it can't sound awful. Ive found that most EQs sound awful.

Well, the Ashly can sound awful. Sometimes awful is good. I probably wouldn't use it for tonal shaping of a stereo classical recording (then again, I've got a Sontec), but it's awesome for hip hop kick and snare. I've also used it on room mics a good bit, when the drum sound is primarily relying on the close mics and the room mics add a bit of extra color.

I hope that makes sense.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Evergreen]

I have a Speck EQ (transformer version) but unfortunatly it is the only EQ I have so I can't compare it to anything else but I can tell you It does great for surgury. I have a cheap ass mandolin with a D string that HOWLS. No mic or mic placement can get it under control but with the Speck I set a narrow Q...find the pitch and knock it down 6 db...and it works great. As far as "color"...it seems pretty transparent to me. I did a lot of research before I bought it and I read nothing but positive reviews. I would have to agree with them.

Tim

[Russian Recording]

Not directed at you , M. Angry Russian, but I am HATING the idea that xformers are "colorful" and not just GOOD!

If xformers are colorful, then so is tape, so is a microphone, so is wire, so is a console, so is a speaker....

The fact that xformers have this weird stigma as the things that saturate and make things colorful... Totally weird.

Certain things sound MUSICAL, certain things sound sterile.... I know we need these words to describe VERY subjective things, but advertisers would have you thinking "throw away your crazy neve mic pres and your U47, we made something without those crazy transformers that REALLY makes you awesome!!!"

I know what you mean. Everything inevitably has its own "color", some colors are ugly, some are bland some are pleasant. I guess the word "color" is somewhat deceiving.

Any descriptive words used to explain the subtleties of recording equipment (or sound in general) are going to be vague and often misunderstood. Even "musical" is vague to me. But these words can be useful if you have experienced for yourself what "musical" or "colored" or "sterile" may or may not sound like. Unfortuantely, a lot of people haven't had the oppertunity to experience such subtleties and they get suckered into thinking that "colorful" is always good and "sterile" is always bad. Well, many would describe the Syteks as "sterile" but I'd describe them as "honest" or "clean". Another good example can be found on a different thread on this forum where someone described their Hamptone Tubes to be "clean"... and I can understand why he said that... but I find them to have much more "personality" than most of my other preamps.

So it's all just a big silly mess of words trying to describe sounds that are near impossible to describe because probably only .01% of the human population can even discern such nuances let alone describe them with words that were originally intended to be used to describe a rainbow, the temperature outside, the current condition of your bathroom, or the size of a person in regards to their excess weight.

Back to transformers:
A perfect example of a very clean/transparent piece of equipment that has transformers: John Hardy Twin Servo and/or the John Hardy M-2.

Back to the EQs:
The Speck ASC-T (with transformer) gives one the option to take the transformer in and out of the circuit for a different "sound".

mike

[joel hamilton]

Your description of the words we use to "explain" what we are hearing or want to hear is quite good.

Anyway,

I have a couple of pultec EQP1r's, a Manley Massive passive, and 26 channels of custom, discrete, inductive coil based EQ. It is like having a lang on every channel...

That being said, I am spoiled wih great EQ choices, and I still use Neumann PEV's, an allison notch filter, and filtek/BFE MKIII's sometimes.

I would like to find one of the old green/red face furman EQ's because they do weird stuff, as do the intersound IVP eq's.

I 100% agree with chris about the ashly: if you have some GOOD choices, then the ashly is an AWESOME "crappy" eq.

Orban EQ's always make me yawn, then get annoyed, then take them out of the chain. every time I tried to love them in the last 8 to 10 years or so. I would rather not EQ than use an orban paragraphic.

[Russian Recording]

Orban EQ's always make me yawn, then get annoyed, then take them out of the chain. every time I tried to love them in the last 8 to 10 years or so. I would rather not EQ than use an orban paragraphic.

Ding!
This is exatcly who im trying to replace. It kind of looks cool though.

[jspartz]

I have a pair of the Speck ASC's and I love them. I feel that they sound good. Not flashy but it does what it does well. I have the dbx project 1 parametric and the channel strips on my pm-2000. When I need to dig in or just add spakle or depth I reach for the specks. What they do fits in really well to my mixes.

Jason