KVR Audio

arklight · Post by **arklight** » Mon Dec 29, 2025 8:52 pm

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/iq4gui_by_platinumears

Over the years after trying a shed load of EQs, Compressors and Dynamics EQs I've kept coming back to the older PlatinumEars IQ4 dynamic EQ which could be the best freeware or paid Dynamic EQ ever for me.

The user interface once understood is a joy. You just get it! I've tried to explain it very simply in the visual guide image, right click ithe mage to save as for quick reference

Heri Mkocha

legendCNCD · Post by **legendCNCD** » Tue Dec 30, 2025 4:58 pm

For me its TDR Nova (GE)

El°HYM · Post by **El°HYM** » Tue Dec 30, 2025 5:07 pm

^ Hard to beat, especially considering that there is also a free version. Then there is TB - EQ4 which also is dynamic, plus a few other nifty treats.

diroxe7660 · Post by **diroxe7660** » Tue Dec 30, 2025 5:59 pm

Thoughtful GUI layout and nice cheat sheet, arklight!

(ZL Equalizer 2 has become my new freebie dynamic EQ goat.)

AGIGA · Post by **AGIGA** » Tue Dec 30, 2025 7:55 pm

arklight wrote: Mon Dec 29, 2025 8:52 pm

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/iq4gui_by_platinumears

Over the years after trying a shed load of EQs, Compressors and Dynamics EQs I've kept coming back to the older PlatinumEars IQ4 dynamic EQ which could be the best freeware or paid Dynamic EQ ever for me.

The user interface once understood is a joy. You just get it! I've tried to explain it very simply in the visual guide image, right click ithe mage to save as for quick reference

Heri Mkocha

Platimum ears was a project of Dan Worrall. He made the plugins with SynthEdit back then.
https://www.kvraudio.com/developer/platinumears

VladK · Post by **VladK** » Tue Dec 30, 2025 10:00 pm

It probably was 10 years ago.
The best free dynamic EQ at the moment is ZL Equalizer 2 IMO: https://zl-audio.github.io/plugins/zlequalizer2/
It actually influenced me to finally pull a trigger and buy Pro-Q 4.

Debutante · Post by **Debutante** » Wed Dec 31, 2025 5:45 am

Actually IQ4 is a bit more refined... it responds to a frequency for input, not the entire signal, and only then acts like a dynamic EQ as opposed to general compressor... maybe more like a multiband Trackspacer

DCrown · Post by **DCrown** » Wed Dec 31, 2025 8:43 am

TDR Nova, but a bit heavy on cpu

legendCNCD · Post by **legendCNCD** » Wed Dec 31, 2025 10:36 am

Nova is still the cleanest and preserves transients properly in my testing.

AGIGA · Post by **AGIGA** » Wed Dec 31, 2025 2:23 pm

DCrown wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 8:43 am TDR Nova, but a bit heavy on cpu

0,03% per instance in Reaper. Intel Core i5 14600.

osiris · Post by **osiris** » Wed Dec 31, 2025 2:55 pm

Back in the day this would just choke my computer CPU, may have to retry it.

Tubeman · Post by **Tubeman** » Thu Jan 01, 2026 12:48 am

VladK wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 10:00 pm It probably was 10 years ago.
The best free dynamic EQ at the moment is ZL Equalizer 2 IMO: https://zl-audio.github.io/plugins/zlequalizer2/
It actually influenced me to finally pull a trigger and buy Pro-Q 4.

Why is it the best?

arklight · Post by **arklight** » Thu Jan 01, 2026 1:21 am

legendCNCD wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 4:58 pm For me its TDR Nova (GE)

I think for me IQ4 was different from ZL Equalizer and TDR Nova which I love, IQ4s layout just made sense, I loved the user interface design.

Like finding the threshold by watching it flicker up and down and moving the slider down to meet it seemed to teach you intuitively about compression if you didn't understand it.

The listen function for people who can't think in frequencies. It was just a joy to use. TDR Nova is amazing, I think as a newbie they might be intimidated to what exactly is going on. It's just a different way at looking at things, it's still a great plugins.

They are all tools we should all have.

Heri Mkocha

VladK · Post by **VladK** » Thu Jan 01, 2026 5:57 pm

Tubeman wrote: Thu Jan 01, 2026 12:48 am
VladK wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 10:00 pm It probably was 10 years ago.
The best free dynamic EQ at the moment is ZL Equalizer 2 IMO: https://zl-audio.github.io/plugins/zlequalizer2/
It actually influenced me to finally pull a trigger and buy Pro-Q 4.
Why is it the best?

Flexibility, UI, and availability of zero latency mode among others.

Possibly the Best Dynamic EQ Freeware? in my humble opinion...