“Its passive design could already convince experts around the globe, so that the current new Passeq is a completion of the old but constantly fresh and new concept of a passive filter design. The Pultec is still THE ‘prototype’ of a passive filter, but SPL’s contribution on this issue has acquired such a status, that it already became a classic itself. The Passeq 2018 is one of the mightiest passive filter designs to this day since the original first Passeq model…”
German Studio Magazin did an awesome review about our new PASSEQ Mastering Equalizer.
“The analog individuality and the demands and requests of big mastering studios, to stand out from the crowd by providing high-quality analog technology, are fulfilled with the highest satisfaction by SPL. Analog technology is a sustainable technology and basically compatible with future technologies.”
In practice and sound:
“The smoothness and transparency of the Passeq is a very appealing design tool to work out shapes and colors of a mix when mastering. SPL did a lot to improve the Passeq towards this purpose.”
“In a direct comparison with the original Passeq I could notice that the new model even got better in terms of transparency in the mids.”
“Working on the mids when mastering is much more flexible now thanks to the extended Cut filter. What didn’t change is the wonderful possibilty to add mids without getting an annoying sound result.”
“It’s pretty attractive to permanently leave the high-boost filter of the new Passeq on 25 or 35 kHz (with a few dB increases), because in this position, the filter delivers a portion of air and silk, making every mastering sounds awesome and expensive.”
“By increasing the Q-factor stepwise and thereby achieve a reduction of the bandwidth, you do exactly find the degree of air and brilliance you are looking for.”
“The fact that you can recall your settings safe and easy, thanks to the detended controls, is a big ergonomical bonus.”
“Also the tighter arranged frequencies in the Cut lowband solely bring benefits. The feel of the device has definitely improved for the better, thanks to the solely detended potentiometers. Turning those knobs is a real pleasure…”
“Voices, acoustic guitars, brass, strings – they all benefit from the extremely charming sound of this equalizer.”
“To describe the sound of the unit I would use terms like creamy, transparent, charming, defined in the low ends, sweet-tempered or relaxed. The device supplements every mastering equipment fleet by wonderful colors and grace.”
“A good Pultec, wheter it’s an original or a good replica, certainly has its strengths, but the Passeq definitely beats him with 36 simultaneously usable Cut/Boost frequencies per channel and it is sonicly at least of equal standing.”
Conclusion:
“The Passeq has become more than a grown up mastering tool in its new version.
Many details were improved or changed towards this purpose. This equalizer is an awesome ‘music machine’, which leaves nothing to be desired for the mastering engineer and it expands and completes the SPL Mastering Series with an important sonic discipline. Shimmering high frequencies, tight and fat low ends, transparent but still creamy mids – For my part, I decided to keep the new Passeq…”
“You can feel the amount of love and detail work in this design, combined with countless listening sessions, to implant these tremendous musical abilities into this equalizer.”
“This classic device found a worthy successor. Great work!”
You will find the complete review (in German) in the current edition (2/18) of the magazine.
