The xfilter is a true linked stereo EQ with the heart and soul of elysia's flagship EQ, the museq. It gives you the expensive sound of an all class-A equalizer in a surprisingly affordable package, with a precise stereo image based on computer-selected, stepped pots and low tolerance film caps.
Exquisite Build QualityThe xfilter is all about details.Every single of its many aspects – sound, features, circuitry, components, design, materials, manufacturing – has been thought over and over until there was just nothing left to improve. Basically, every single part of our fine products is custom, and most of these are made according to our own designs and specs.
Only the best components the market has to offer are good enough for the xfilter, and it shows. Each of our product is manually built to order and tested by ourselves, here at our headquarters in Germany.
Our product benefits sum up in an audio quality that is beyond all doubt. Even when extreme settings are used, the sound always stays clean and powerful.
Stretch Armstrong Flexibility
The xfilter is absolutely serious about flexibility. It offers high and low shelf bands which can be switched into high and low cut filters with resonance, two mid peak filters with wide and narrow Q, plus additional passive LC stages with shielded coils for a glorious top end.
With its exceptionally open sound, straight transient projection and solid punch, the xfilter is the perfect match for your xpressor – or anything else in your arsenal.
True Stereo Operation
Using an analog EQ on a stereo buss can be quite tricky, as only very few units offer the possibility to link their two mono channels for true stereo processing.
As a result, the user needs to fiddle around with many knobs in order to cope with the tedious task of matching the settings for both channels as good as possible. The problem gets only worse when the controllers do not have any steps for reference.
But while there are so many compressors in the market that can be linked for stereo operation, why are there almost no EQs which can do this, too? One of the main answers is component tolerances. Obviously, you want the two linked channels to behave exactly the same, but the natural tolerances that especially potentiometers and capacitors have counteract this ideal characteristic.To make a long story short: The xfilter solves this problem by using computer-selected dual and quad layer pots as well as special low tolerance caps.
Resonance High and Low Pass Filter
The outer bands of the xfilter show a great amount of flexibility. In their standard mode, they are set up as sweet sounding high and low shelf filters that can be used to tailor the airiness and fundamentals of your tracks fast and efficiently.
As a special feature, you can independently switch these to become high and low cut filters with 12 dB per octave and an additional resonance peak at the knee frequency. This allows some very interesting and useful filter curves.Especially bass frequencies can benefit from a low cut with resonance by obtaining a clean and punchy character. But the resonance can also be used to stretch signals in the bass range, because the resonance filter causes a longer post-oscillation time.
In the high frequency range, you can use the resonance filter to put an accent on a selected frequency without boosting the complete HF spectrum at the same time, which can prevent harshness or an unwanted shift of the overall perception towards the treble.
Switchable Filter Quality
The filter quality of the two parametric mid bands can be switched between two characteristics: Wide (Q 0.5) and narrow (Q 1.0), based on the proportional Q principle.When designing a parametric filter, you have quite a range to choose from when it comes to the Q factor. After extensive listening, we decided to implement a choice of 0.5 or 1.0 in the xfilter, as these parameters always result in what this machine is focused on: Very musical processing.
You will notice that very narrow Q factors are not offered here. These days, most engineers we know of use digital filters for notching narrow ranges to get rid of problematic frequencies anyway. And this is for a good reason, as it works extremely well.
Additional Passive High-Band
In addition to its four flexible active bands, the xfilter features a switchable fixed LC filter for polishing the high frequency range. The filter mainly consists of a capacitor and a coil per channel, but unlike the standard shelving designs, it has a slight resonance peak at 12 kHz and starts to fall of at 17 kHz.
This way, the saturation-like storage effect of the coil focuses on the area around the peak without pushing the complete high frequency spectrum too much. The inductors used in the xfilter have their own shields to reduce outer influences like hum – without these shields, the coils would pretty much act like antennas for all kinds of unwanted noises.
Stepped Controllers
The xfilter features stepped potentiometers for all its parameters throughout. The 41 steps make a precise recall very easy, and they provide a useful range of possible settings at the same time. And you will just love the feel of them, too.
Computer-Selected Potentiometers
In a linked stereo EQ, the potentiometers need a lot of layers. The pots for setting the mixers (gain) have two layers each, while the pots for setting the frequencies even have a total of four layers each!The problem occurs that every single layer has its own component tolerance, and while layer A could be at the absolute minimum of the allowed tolerance, layer B could be at the absolute maximum.
Special Low Tolerance Capacitors
If you look under the hood of an audio equalizer, it is very likely that you will find a lesser or greater number of film capacitors. These caps use an insulating plastic film as the dielectric, which is drawn in a special process to an extremely thin thickness.
Ground Layer Shield
The PCBs of the xfilter have a total of four layers: Two of them are used for the audio circuitry, one is for power supplying traces, and the last one is a dedicated ground shield layer.
The filter networks of the individual bands of the EQ become higher in resistance the lower their specific frequency is set.
Discrete Class-A Topology
In a class-A amplifier, the transistors are conductive all of the time nullifying any crossover distortion. This is the perfect technological basis for an open sound with massive punch and no degradation of your original source.
elysia xfilter Class-A Stereo 4-Band Parametric EQ
100% Class-A Topology
- Expensive boutique sound made affordable. Discrete input, output and mix stages plus the complete audio path running in constant class-A mode are the basis for an exceptionally transparent, wide and open sounding EQ
True Stereo Operation
- Two channels, just one set of controllers. As one of the few exceptions in the market, the xfilter processes both of its channels with just one set of controllers a true stereo linked EQ
Resonance High & Low Cut Filters
- Extremely useful secret weapons. The shelving filters can be switched into high and low cut filters with an additional resonance peak. Not ordinary, but extremely useful
Switchable Filter Quality
- Wide and narrow Q for the parametric mids. The quality of the peak filters can be switched from a wide to a narrow Q factor which remains independent from the setting of the gain controller
Additional Passive High-Band
- Magic LC polish for opening up the top end. The beautiful sheen only passive filters can deliver... the xfilter has it all. An additional LC filter with shielded coils gives you the 'Passive Massage'
Stepped Controllers
- All potentiometers on the xfilter have 41 steps, which is a great help for recalling your previous sessions fast and precisely
Computer-Selected Potentiometers
- Every single dual and quad layer pot we buy is measured with custom computer routines, and only the good ones go into production
Special Low Tolerance Capacitors
- Computer-selected for better stereo accuracy. The special series of film caps used for the xfilter performs twice as good as the industry standard in terms of component tolerance
Ground Layer Shield
- One of the four layers of both PCBs is a full copper plane which helps to reduce interferences caused by electric fields
Stepped Controllers
- Fast and easy recall guaranteed
Made in Germany
- Build quality without compromise
Frequency response
<10Hz– 400 kHz (-3.0dB) THD+N@0 dBu, 20Hz – 22kHz: 0.0018 % @+10 dBu, 20Hz–22kHz: 0.005 %
Noise floor
20 Hz – 20 kHz (A-weighted): -98 dBu
Dynamic range
20 Hz – 22 kHz: 120 dB
Maximum level
Input: +21 dBu Output: +21 dBu
Impedance
Input: 10 kOhm Output: 68 Ohm
Power Consumption
70 Watts
Dimensions
19″x 1.75″ x8.6″ 482 x 44,45 x 220mm
Weight
4 lbs 1,8 kg