bblackwood: As the creator of the parametric EQ (and as an obvious expert), do you think the best digital EQ's have caught up with the best analog EQ's?

George: I think they should be sent to a cave in Afghanistan. I think that I was "waiting" for digital to happen so that I could clean up the mess that never seems to disappear in the linear domain. Do I think digital EQ's are better? Why, yes I do, mainly for this reason: they are re-settable. In a console, this is such a giant step into the future. We don't BEGIN to understand what this...this... ABILITY to recall a mix, to restore our palette - our canvas - to it's last state. This feature alone is SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than some tiny little artifact...some, some... lace and filigree around the once-thought-to-be-pristine-but-not-really analog sound.

Uh, what was the question? Right!!! Yes it's caught up and surpassed analog EQ! So, FLAME ON!

Fletcher: I beg to differ with that opinion, especially after having heard the GML 9500.

George: Uh, who makes THAT?

Tom B: Does digital have less phase shift and ringing or ripples than analog?

George: I do not believe in the importance of "phase shift" as it pertains to the perception of supposed artifacts in a sound. I do not subscribe to zero-phase EQ. I do not "hear" phase shift as I move EQ around. I AM VERY careful when I'm micing a room, micing drums, in particular, so that the arrival times of the signals to different mics are, well, considered.

I mean, it's a complex environment, and hard to put numbers to, but it's VASTLY more important to "line up signals". Mind you, I’m just talking about the phase shift that's introduced in EQing...

Dave D: Does the manipulation of a digital EQ leave the phase relationships of the signal intact?

George: Generally, with IIR filters, no. With FIR filters, yes. I do hear a difference, yes, but I hear so many other important features to the sound, features that I believe should be observed first before the extremely subtle colors that phase shift in and of itself generates. Let us not forget that it's music, and music exists - first and foremost - in the real world.

The REAL WORLD is full of delays and phase shifts and weird artifacts That's what makes it real, that's why you went out and bought a FATSO... to make it real again.