Good rebuttal, Bill.
 
I do believe that there are things that can be heard but not measured, and of course lots of things that can be measured but not heard. If what sounds good could be objectively quantified, we'd have nothing to talk about here.
 
I am intrigued by the Maag, due to anecdotal testimonials from the likes of yorolpal. I'd love to live with it for a couple months and see for myself, but $229 is too high a price regardless of whether the payoff is a) discovering a wonderful tool or b) vindicating my prejudices.
 
So for now I'm gonna go with the graphs I've seen in VST Analyzer that reveal the Maag EQ to be just another equalizer, albeit one that attempts to guide your hand for you. I'll stick with my fully-parametric EQs that can do pert-near anything and don't make assumptions about what I want.

bitflipper
I do believe that there are things that can be heard but not measured,

Perhaps you could clarify this for me?

the thing is...
 
no matter WHAT the EQ you use,
 
the SOURCE, and the CAPTURE,
will always be more important.
 
 
every mic has a sonic fingerprint,
and sometimes the make and break point of a particular track is simply the choice of mic.
 
the whole purpose of having to use EQ in the first place,
is that something is missed in the capture.
 
there are brilliant guys out there, that create custom eq curves using all sorts of devices (i'm talking hardware eq's now.......)
and they know what they are going for..
but ultimately, their choices still boil down to SUBJECTIVE CHOICES..... most of the time.
 
 
i'm afraid that any chasing of particular eq curves, or 'emulations' of famous hardware eq (PULTEC comes to mind) is probably not going to get you any closer to the truth (which is, ultimately, the best tracks you can conjur)
 
 
there are so many other factors that come into play that are much much more important.
 
forest for the trees.
 

drewfx1

bitflipper
I do believe that there are things that can be heard but not measured,

Perhaps you could clarify this for me?

Sure. Any aspect of sound that can only be realized through processing by a human brain. In short, you can't measure music, only sound. Music doesn't even exist until it's been created in the listener's brain.Until then, it's just fluctuations in air pressure or a string of numbers in a DAW.
 
Examples. There is no piece of test equipment that can reliably distinguish between pleasant and unpleasant combinations of sounds. Clever, well-constructed lyrics look the same on an oscilloscope as Metallica lyrics. Harmony, counterpoint, dynamics, tension/release are all human constructs that have no meaning outside the realm of mental processing. Same for emotional associations (e.g. pizzacato strings and oboes are light-hearted, trombones are menacing, tympani are majestic) that work by leveraging humans' common experiences and previous associations.
 
These are things that can be heard but not measured.

OK. I suspected you were talking about art and not audio. 
 
I wanted to clarify because I consider "the ear can hear things that can't be measured" to be the initial premise from which all audiophoolery follows, and didn't want anyone to mistakenly read it that way.

bitflipper
Clever, well-constructed lyrics look the same on an oscilloscope as Metallica lyrics.

 
Ouch! lol.....

drewfx1
OK. I suspected you were talking about art and not audio. 
 
I wanted to clarify because I consider "the ear can hear things that can't be measured" to be the initial premise from which all audiophoolery follows, and didn't want anyone to mistakenly read it that way.

While it is certainly true that audiophoolery comes from the suggestion that there are things that can be heard but not measured, the same concept is the basis of a LOT of truly great - and useful research.
 
It is not just art, nor is it just science, it is a combination of the two. And some of the best minds in professional audio continue to try to solve this puzzle...why do two amplifiers measure the same but sound different? Among a couple hundred others!

bitflipperGood rebuttal, Bill.

 
I try<G>!
 

bitflipperI am intrigued by the Maag, due to anecdotal testimonials from the likes of yorolpal. I'd love to live with it for a couple months and see for myself, but $229 is too high a price regardless of whether the payoff is a) discovering a wonderful tool or b) vindicating my prejudices.

 
I've owned or used the hardware, the native plug-in, and the UA plug-in. All three are amazing - about as close to magical as I've ever used, and definitely infinitely musical. Also extremely easy to over-use!
 
I currently use the native version, and the difference between native and UA is so imperceptible (inaudible on my current monitors) so I haven't made the leap to the UA version (it did not exist when I bought the native version.)
 
I've only used the hardware in a studio with a monitor system that is orders of magnitude better than mine, and I found the hardware much easier to use, but I'm certain that was because I could hear everything that was going on.

I consider the MAAG EQ to be one of my secret weapons - I kinda wish I was the only one that knew about it<G>! I use it for mixing a lot, for tracking rarely, and even for restoration. It is NOT vintage, but it is amazing, and I find their choices for center and corner frequencies to be very useful.

I do not know exactly what goes on under the sheet metal, but I've built very low Q high frequency shelving filters and gotten a similar effect, albeit a much noisier effect. Some pretty solid engineering in that little blue box!
 
Make sure you have the cash handy before you try it, I'd be willing to wager you'll end up buying it! (There is a 14 day demo at Plugin Alliance)

The software replicates the hardware, which was fixed.  There is no other reason that software can't switch.  But the points chosen by hardware weren't random.  Mr. Neve's ears, and Putnam's etc. were good, and they found optimum points and slopes by testing what was available w/ the technology of the day.  And guess what, those still sound good. 
 
@