PA Maag EQ4 vs EQ2 - is the air on 4 smoother?

[Ploki]

It's not even a SHELF on Maag EQ4 - it is infact a bell near Nyquist. LOL

This is what a real 40k shelf looks like (SlickEQM in red)



Blindtest / personal preference or not - Maag EQ is falsely advertised. People buy the Maag for this magical 40k shelf which is a fake. PA have made millions from this one plugin because of a lie.

Shit youre right, its even more obvious when doing 10 or 20k.
I was wondering where that “high” rolloff comes from

[MogwaiBoy]

The SlickEQ should be a shelf, not a bell - but you get the point

[waltercruz]

Maag EQ2 and EQ4 were modeled by different people.. (EQ2 = reimund dratwa and EQ4 = Michael Massberg) maybe this 'explain' the differences between their air band?

[mixtur.se]

took me 1 minutes to cancel it to -33dB and couldn't be arsed to do it further, i discovered that boosting AIR at 40khz actually boosts entire signal for 4.6dB (on top of the shelf).

Typical PA bullshit - doing something to mess with loudness to sound more impressive than it is

it's bog standard minimal phase EQ with absolutely nothing special going on, and doing the same "air band" with Pro-Q3 Natural phase or any EQ with oversampling to prevent cramping will be better.


https://imgur.com/a/zeiBOlr

for some EQs it can be at least be argued that there's at least curves modelled and shit, but don't write "40k" on your knob when you're brickwalled by nyquist at 20-somethingK, because it just looks like you have no clue what you're doing

I think the idea is that because the curve extends beyond 20k it affects the way the curve looks below 20k, which is what gives it a specific sound. I am, however, not sure if that marketing claim is true.

[Burillo]

Maag shelf is a shelf not a bell. Easy to see when testing with higher sampling rate.

[Ploki]

I think the idea is that because the curve extends beyond 20k it affects the way the curve looks below 20k, which is what gives it a specific sound. I am, however, not sure if that marketing claim is true.

yes, but it doesn't work

i get the idea, just saying it's not possible to do that in practice- and many plugins do that anyway.

Maag shelf is a shelf not a bell. Easy to see when testing with higher sampling rate.

maybe, but because it doesn't oversample it cramps frequencies at the top.

on the other hand, here's how Voxengo HarmoniEQ looks like when shelving at 38k.

[Ploki]

here's phase response of Maag vs HarmoniEQ, and the idiotic gain boost that's absolutely unecessary and is there just to increase perceived loudness.
if you analyse phase, you'll see the bottom/mid gain boost has flat phase which means is really nothing more than gain boost.
That's the cheapest f**king trick in the book.

[revvy]

The graphs have convinced me!

[Ploki]

well that was their point

anyway - i paid 20$ for u-he skins by plugmon, so maagEQ for 15$ is i guess fine if you think of it as a skin for a minimal phase eq. (Which in all reality is)

[robindrieghe]

what you really want and need and cant live without is maaT eq's

[4damind]

Btw... can you match the curve of the Maag Air Band with a Pultec emulation? (Blackrooster, NoiseAsh, UAD or some of the other known emulations)

Edit:
Dangerous Bax, Aireq or VMR Air module (Eiosis/Slate) are also known for the their shelf filters. The interesting question is: how does the Maag EQ compare?

Edit 2:
Ok... Blackrooster (and therefore the Pultec) has no chance, completely different EQ and completely different shelf filter (emphasizes very strongly the cutoff frequency... almost a bit like a peak filter).
AirEQ very similar to Maag (at lower gain values <6dB), but as you know with very crazy implementation of gain. 1dB is not 1dB, but results in 4dB or more. In conjunction with the cut filter (@30khz, 6dB slope) almost identical to Maag.
Dangerous Bax also very similar, but a rather small gain range.
But... the Maag at high gain values (>6dB) strongly raises the complete frequency range, actually something you don't want? IMO the Air Band is less spectacular than the advertising suggests. But this doesn't mean its completely useless.
The fixed frequency bands makes this EQ a very easy to use EQ and the special high shelf is a interesting addition.

[Ploki]

Both air and mid band raise overall gain - and its just raise in gain. Pointless and makes it harder to evaluate/match but it sounds like its impressive.

[fcamp]

As far as I remember, the Air band in the harware also does that volumen boost.

[revvy]

It's a sweet sounding boost too. The graphs are pretty but the boost sounds sweeter. Airy.

[imrae]

Here's your regular reminder that Luftikus has a gain-compensation mode, making it a better tool than EQ4.