Inspired by Studer’s classic 169 console, this handmade EQ is just as suited to mixing work as it is to tracking and mastering.

Back in March last year, I reviewed HLabs’ CS169, which is an all‑analogue channel strip based on the classic Studer 169 mixing console. I enjoyed it very much. The EQ169+ is a standalone EQ that draws on the same heritage and, as with all HLabs’ products, is entirely handmade at the company’s facility near Lyon, France. The company already offer a less costly EQ that puts two channels of the CS169’s EQ section in the same box, but the EQ169+ is a mono device that boasts not only more bands but some clever features that I’ll explore in detail below.

Controls & Features

The EQ169+ is a single‑channel device that’s housed in a 1U 19‑inch rackmountable case. It has balanced XLR inputs and outputs (the maximum input and output levels are each +22dBu) and an IEC14 power inlet on the back panel, along with a ground‑lift switch. On the inside, you’ll find circuit boards populated entirely with through‑hole components. There’s nothing inherently wrong with surface‑mount devices, but this traditional approach bodes well for maintenance and repair on site (should that ever be necessary; the build quality inspires confidence!).

On the front, the yellow and white legending contrasts pleasingly with the panel’s dark blue‑grey, and it all looks very stylish. You could argue that some of the labels are a bit on the small side, but they’re cleanly printed and this, along with the high‑contrast colour scheme, makes everything perfectly easy to read. Colour is used to differentiate the controls. The band gains all have yellow caps, with black lines aligned to an integrated pointer. As with other knobs, a line down their side makes it easy to discern the setting from any viewing angle. The frequency selectors have white caps, again with black lines. The only departure from the ‘white for frequency, yellow for gain’ scheme (I know not why) is the master output level control, on the far right, which has a white cap.

The control layout makes good, intuitive sense, with the knobs for two Presence bands flanked by both high and low shelving bands, and with an additional high‑pass filter on the far left.

These knobs operate 11‑position switches and that, in combination with the tolerances of the chosen resistors and capacitors, means you have the precision needed for accurate recall and for channel matching of multiple units; HLabs tell us that different units are gain‑matched to be within ±0.1dB.

There’s a reassuringly chunky power on/off toggle on the right of the front panel, as well as a smaller bypass toggle, and I was pleased to see the power switch protected by two solid‑steel cheeks that protrude from the front to create a visually striking feature.

In terms of frequencies, the low shelf has a 60/20 Hz frequency switch, while the options for the high shelf are a conventional 20 and a rather airier 35 kHz. Despite those particularly high and low frequency options, the shelves’ gentle slopes reach well up/down into the audible range, where they can interact usefully with the other bands to fine‑tune the overall EQ curve. The high‑pass filter can be set to off or 12, 16, 20, 25, 31, 42, 55, 78, 110 or 160 Hz, making it pretty versatile. The Low Presence (low‑mid) band offers 150, 200, 300, 400, 500, and 700 Hz, and 1, 2.3, 3.5 and 5.6 kHz, while the High Presence (high‑mid) band can be set to 270, 390, 560, and 820 Hz, or 1.2, 1.8, 2.7, 3.9, 4.7, 6.2, and 7 kHz.

The EQ band gain knobs again turn 11‑position switches, this time for five cut and five boost settings (the 11th position being unity), but the options change according to your choice of gain range, which presumably is why the numerical settings aren’t specified on the panel. I think that’s the right call; too much information would arguably be worse than the clean turn‑and‑listen approach adopted here. To set the range, there’s a three‑position toggle switch to the left of the bypass toggle. In Original mode, you have ±12dB of adjustment on the Presence bands and ±15dB on the shelves, whereas in Mastering mode, the presence bands’ control range is ±4dB and that of the shelves ±5dB, so the switches give you far finer control over a more restricted range. A third choice, in the switch’s middle position, is Hybrid mode, which combines the shelving options of Mastering with the greater mid‑band ranges of Original. The output level isn’t affected by the range control, and always offers you ±3dB of gain.

In Use

The EQ169+ is incredibly quick and easy to dial in, thanks in no small part to the stepped controls. On the face of it, to inexperienced engineers who’ve grown up with software tools, stepped controls might appear to limit your options, but there’s real merit in this approach. Just being able to reach out, tweak the controls and listen, in full confidence that you can return exactly and immediately to the previous setting, means you can easily compare and contrast settings. That’s great for mastering and other work with complex material, but it’s also a way of working that every student of audio should experience; a really effective way to to train your ear and develop your listening skills. In any case, there are plenty of frequency options to play with, and generous overlap between bands means that you can perform boosts and cuts close together, or dial in some pretty complex curves — between the HPF, the low shelf and the Presence bands, you have ample control over the punch and power region of a kick drum, for instance.

The stepped controls also made using two units on stereo material a breeze, but not just for mastering. For example, the review pair was a joy to use on a drum bus, and worked well on the stereo mix bus too,

Some EQs do offer you more than the ±12dB of gain available in the mid bands, of course, but honestly, how often do you really need a broad 15dB boost/cut? While there’s plenty of scope to shape any sound, I should note that the bandwidths are not adjustable, and I’d suggest that this EQ is much more about broad tonal shaping than the surgical removal of problems.

That you can restrict the gain range to make possible really focused adjustments is wonderful, and is one of the keys to this EQ being so supremely versatile — it’s super easy to configure an appropriate gain range for whatever tracking, mixing or mastering application you have in mind — and this is something that’s been managed without crowding the front panel, or cramming too many options into the range of any one control.

My ears detected an almost indefinable hint of silky smoothness: while this EQ sounds clean, it never struck me as sounding harsh or clinical.

It’s not long since I had the CS169 channel strip in for testing, and I opened up some projects I’d used that on for comparison. There are more EQ options on the EQ169+, of course, but the sonic character is just the same — just as impressive. What this translates to in subjective terms is an EQ that sounds clean and effortless, as you’d expect of a unit whose quoted frequency response (1kΩ load) is within ±0.1dB from 5.4Hz to over 25kHz, a THD spec of 0.005% at 0dBU, and which has a signal‑to‑noise ratio in excess of 108dB. Still, as was the case when appraising the CS169, my ears detected an almost indefinable hint of silky smoothness: while this EQ sounds clean, it never struck me as sounding harsh or clinical.

The Bottom Line

This isn’t the only seductive‑sounding, high‑quality analogue EQ today, and competition is fierce. But there are few models whose roots lie in the Studer consoles, and the EQ169+ has lots to commend it. If you want to hear it in action on a range of material, check out the examples on HLabs’ own product page (https://hlabs.audio/product/eq169-plus). But the long and short of it is that this device is easy to use and it sounds superb; if I had to use no other EQ for tone‑shaping ever again, I wouldn’t complain. Given the sonic quality, the versatile features, and that the units are hand‑built in Europe, the asking price represents decent value too.