Lindell Audio EQ825

Lindell Audio EQ825 captures one of the rarest and most sought-after mastering EQs ever built. Few pros have ever touched one, yet its retro, technicolored lines are instantly recognizable. If you don't have $20k to spare for an original, this plugin truly does the pinnacle of tube mastering EQs justice. Its presence, warmth, and pristine tone all sum to sonic gold.

The unicorn of inductor EQs

The original hardware was built by an ingenious group of esoteric audiophiles, who cherry-picked the best analog components from a multitude of manufacturers. Lindell Audio are the first to faithfully capture its five iconic EQ bands with their incredibly customized filter networks – all those inductors, resistors and capacitors. Hear them working their magic in the airy highs, tight lows, and midrange presence they add to drums, and the smooth top-end and enhanced "air" they bring to vocals.

Smooth tubes and high-headroom transformers

The extraordinary sonic profile of those special EQ curves is further enhanced by the unit's premium tubes and transformers. This clever combination of components brings sweetness, depth and punch to your mix bus. It also delivers extraordinarily high headroom. Want even more character from those tubes? Just crank the Variable THD control.

The high point of analog mastering EQs

Lindell Audio has resurrected one of the few A-Tier passive tube EQs built around the turn of the century. This legacy is also a big part of its special sonic profile. Its construction combined classic topologies with modern engineering approaches. The result is a premium analog tone with a significantly lower noise floor and greater clarity. This really counts during mastering where all those imperfections are applied across the mix and really add up. This unprecedented analog clarity makes the EQ825 plugin perfect for the most demanding applications, including orchestral arrangements and final mastering.

A few tweaks from perfection

Lindell has faithfully replicated the original hardware, revered to this day. Versions with stepped gains are known by some as the EQ "cheat control". Bands are expertly configured to offer musically beautiful EQ combinations. Lindell has modeled the continuous gain controls on one of the earliest units for greater flexibility. You can easily dial in those cult combinations by selecting the whole values – it just takes a few turns to hear something special. A valuable addition is the new spectrum analyzer, so now users who like visual feedback can make the most of its coveted curves while EQing.

More than a collector's item

New features expand the utility and creative potential of the hardware's special sound. These include options for Mid/Side processing, Mono Maker, and up to 16x oversampling. Bring a new dimension to the EQ's famously tight and punchy low end with the Octave Filler. This function adds a lower octave into the signal. It sounds amazing on kicks, 808s, toms, and bass.

Features

• Exacting model of ultra-rare 2010s tube EQ.
• Five-band stereo parametric EQ.
• Transformer-balanced Class-A tube circuitry.
• Custom high-headroom transformers.
• Variable high-pass and low-pass filters.
• Octave Filler for rich low-end extension.
• Variable THD for controlled saturation.
• Proportional-Q design for precision and musicality.
• Quick AB comparison mode.
• Scalable User Interface.
• Mono Maker (under 200 Hz).
• Integrated FFT spectrum analyzer.

{See video at top of page}

YouTube.com/watch?v=y3NJVnEjRm4