Dangerous Music Stereo BAX EQ
Edmeston, NY - September 1, 2010 - Dangerous Music announced today that it has begun shipping its new stereo 'Dangerous BAX EQ' to international distributors and U.S. dealers. The new one-rack space unit is ideal for use in mastering and as a final mix buss shelving EQ. Dangerous Music built the BAX in response to demand from a professional studio community searching for a broad-stroke sonic sculpting tool with a unique signature. The Dangerous design team took inspiration from the classic 'Baxandall' shelving curves of the 60's and 70's and created a high-fidelity equalizer with a 21st century mastering aesthetic. The result, as evidenced by engineers using the new EQ, is pure emotive expression with audiophile accuracy. The new Dangerous BAX EQ retails for $2529.00 USD.
The BAX EQ focuses on clarity, ultra low distortion and extremely low noise so, in addition to its obvious application on stereo program material, it also sits comfortably in a high-performance mic/mic pre chain without lowering the quality or changing the character of any units' natural sound; The EQ curves are perfect for "gentling up" an overly bright condenser mic or for adding "air" to a ribbon mic.
While in pre-release use at several studios, the BAX EQ garnered praise from the engineers, "The BAX EQ is unlike anything you have heard, but exactly like what you've been looking for," noted Phil Demetro, from Lacquer Channel Mastering, Toronto, Ontario.
Grammy Award-wining mastering engineer Dave Kutch has put the BAX EQ through its paces in his NY studio, The Mastering Palace, "I want this box for the 84 Hz band alone. While test-driving the prototype I got addicted to it - the BAX EQ gave me a foot like no other EQ I have does. It's no surprise that the first piece of signal processing from Dangerous is something that currently does not exist and something I need to have."
"The BAX EQ is my new favorite box to put across my whole mix," adds mix engineer Fab, from his New York City Flux Studios. "It lets me achieve that modern pop brightness without any of the usual sibilance or harshness. The super low-end is fat without being muddy and it's incredibly smooth and balanced. I have never heard any EQ like this one before."
Main Features of the Dangerous BAX EQ:
Stepped controls throughout for repeatability and identical stereo operation
Broad Q Shelving
7-position High Pass and Low Pass Filters -2-pole Butterworth configuration (12 dB/oct)
8-position High and Low Frequency Select
+/- 5dB Cut and Boost controls in 1/2 dB steps
The Baxandall curves are broad and gentle, so for example when boosting +3 dB, a wide range of frequencies will also be boosted at different levels along the curve. This is why the BAX employs +/-5 dB instead of +/-15 dB of cut/boost like many EQs that work in narrower bandwidths. By engaging the filters in conjunction with the boost/cut controls users can shape the curves. The hi-pass and low-pass filters are multi-purpose: the first step on each filter removes 'out-of-audio-band information' such as DC and sub-sonic rumble on the low-end and high-frequency oscillation on the top end. These simple settings eliminate much of the audio stresses that limit the overall amount of level that can be captured in a recording, and make compressors and A/D converters overwork.
Background on Engineer P. J. Baxandall
In 1952 British engineer P. J. Baxandall published a landmark paper titled "Negative Feedback tone Control: Independent Variation of Bass and Treble Without Switches." The Baxandall design idea is distinguished from other EQs by offering extremely low harmonic distortion using negative feedback in the circuits, which allows accurate control of the op amps. Negative feedback essentially works by sending a polarity-reversed copy of the output signal back to the input of the amp. Then, when this signal is filtered by components that change the relative frequency content, the user gets an active tone control. The Baxandall EQ curve is often referred to as a "shelving" control because of the shape created by the amplitude versus frequency response when boosting or cutting the low and high end frequencies - compared to peak or dip-type response shapes. Baxandall's EQ design has graced hundreds of millions of home Hi-Fi systems.
For more information visit Dangerous Music
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