Pultec MEQ-5
A passive tube midrange equalizer that engineers have been chasing with plug-in emulations for decades. The original hardware still has the last word.
Overview
The MEQ-5 is the midrange half of the Pultec equalizer story. It is the companion to the EQP-1A that so many studios pair with it. Waves chose it alongside the EQP-1A and the Fairchild 670 for its Jack Joseph Puig Collection, and described the models as precision-modeled "to capture every detail of their rich harmonic complexity." A plug-in company going to that trouble says the MEQ-5 is regarded as a reference-grade midrange tool. Mix (September 2008, p.3) listed the resulting PuigTec MEQ-5 among the models drawn from rare pieces in the studio of producer/engineer Jack Joseph Puig.
Per the period specification literature, the MEQ-5 divides its work into three separate sections handling boost and attenuation across a sweep of midrange frequencies: 200, 300, 500, 700, 1k, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 kHz, with up to +10 dB available. Studio Sound (November 1976, p.42) catalogued it in its equalizer survey as the "MEQ-5 Mid Range Equaliser," noting its general specification followed the EQP-13 and EQH-2. Boost here, cut there, often at overlapping frequencies - that three-section layout is the whole point of the Pultec midrange approach, and the box has never really gone out of demand.
This gets muddled constantly in online discussion, so here it is up front: the Pultec equalizers were not active tube EQs in the sense most people assume. Mix (November 1996, p.108), walking through the Pultec design philosophy, explained that the actual equalization took place in a passive circuit. The tubes served as an input buffer and provided gain makeup to recover the insertion loss inherent to a passive design. So the MEQ-5 is a passive EQ with a tube line stage wrapped around it. The coloration people describe comes from that arrangement, not from tubes doing the filtering.
People were hunting MEQ-5s hard even while they were still just used gear. A 1988 classified in DB Magazine (May 1988, p.80) advertised outright: "WANTED: Pultec EQ's. We will pay $1,000 for almost any Pultec program EQ models EQP1/EQP1A/EQP1A3. Also wanted EQH2/EQH3/MEQ5/MAVEC/MB1/ITI." That is a buyer offering four figures for a used equalizer in the late Eighties, which suggests the MEQ-5 was already entrenched in professional rooms.
Collectors and engineers note that the MEQ-5 is almost always discussed as a pair with the EQP-1A rather than on its own. The EQP-1A brings the low/high shelving, the MEQ-5 brings the parametric-style midrange control, and together they cover the full spectrum. Studios that own one tend to want the other. The MEQ-5 is the more surgical of the two, the tool for when a vocal or a snare needs its midrange shaped rather than its bottom or top extended.
Pultec's design has proven durable enough that it keeps getting reissued in new formats. Electronic Musician reported on a 500-series version, the MEQ-500 Jack Douglas Edition ($1,295), described as a 500-series take on the MEQ-5 midrange equalizer with a couple of extra frequency-band options added. A signature edition built around the MEQ-5 rather than the more famous EQP-1A is a fair sign of how the engineers who use the midrange unit value it.
Original MEQ-5s surface far less often than EQP-1As, and when they do they command serious money. The 1988 classified offering $1,000 for "almost any" Pultec program EQ is a useful historical floor, and the market has moved considerably since. Buyers should verify tube condition and confirm the unit has been calibrated, since these are passive designs whose performance depends on the buffer and makeup stage behaving to spec. Original examples with clean faceplates and intact original transformers are the ones collectors hold onto.
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