Equalizer in a Hi Fi system

Am enjoying the heck out of this instrument. It is a joy to equalize with such a precision high end device. It is so clean and accurate. BUT…I still love the CO sound!  I love both of these equalizers!  The CO is more rounded but more euphonic. The bell curves on it sound beautiful. The CO has an air of sophistication to its sound that’s hard to deny. I will never get rid of my two. 
I am now playing with tube mode on the Wes and have emulated my same settings but backed down on the bass Q width. Treble filter identical. NOW, this mode sounds really great!  Such fun! 

Yep. Back to Charter Oak after all weekend with Wes. CO is with a sweeter air band, a tighter punchier bass and an overall more euphonic lovely sound. However it’s less of a detail monster than Wes, being essentially more rounded. I have always said the CO turns my solid state into the best sounding tube sound you’ll ever hear. It’s a very sophisticated sound. Beautiful sheen and gloss. Can’t honestly say which unit I like best. Both. For different reasons.

I have put the Wes Audio NGTubeEQ in the loudspeaker system. It’s even better there. Has SOTA resolution and musicality. Endlessly tweakable, if so desired. You can sonically sculpt the sound anyway you want with incredible fidelity. That’s what you get for 6 K in the hardware analog EQ department. Kudos!

Have reached new heights of audiophilism with the aforementioned Alice In Chains album with Wes in big rig. For 6 K you should with decent hi fi gear be able to get this album, which is recessed cymbals and decreased bass kick and forward mids due to loudness wars/ studio compression, to sound great. It’s even greater than before with the use of tube output combined with use of gain and iron pad dials. Great great feature on Wes. You turn up the gain say 3 dbs to slightly overdrive the tubes then iron pad attenuates that extra output. The end result is more resolute saturated mids and better bass heft. Meaning not only does it sound better but you can back off a tad on bass gain, always a good thing with EQ in general. AND every new move you make can be directly instantly compared to your last setting with the stored presets. 
And more importantly, I can be EXTREMELY exacting with listening and instant A-B comparisons as I sit in my listening spot with my Bryston remote and go back and forth with tape loop monitor button, toggling between the sound of my source > DAC > preamp > amp (purest way possible, true true bypass I call it) versus source > DAC > preamp > EQ (active) > amp. Note that pressing ‘Bypass’ on the EQ, the circuitry in this nomenclature looks like this: source > DAC > preamp > EQ in bypass > amp. 
I have been an utter mad scientist for days now with this thing, but what I’m getting out of it is incredible.

I still though stand by my conclusion that CO PEQ-1 is a MORE MUSICAL sounding equalizer. Which, in the end, trumps detail/ resolution for me.