Siemens ELA 75-15 Universal Equalizer, Discrete Pushbutton Mastering EQ (Helios Pultec) Unknown to most the 75-15 was built to the highest standard possible with gold plated switches, all gold plated PCB traces/pads(!), fully modular, fully discrete, transformer balanced and 1% metal film resistors throughout. I've never seen any other piece of vintage audio equipment manufactured with gold plated PCB traces/pads. This was Siemens "money is no object" response to the excellent Klein + Hummel UE100 and UE1000 mastering equalizers. When I discussed the 75-15 with John Peluso, of Peluso Microphones he said "The EQ is Fantastic one of the best sounding units I have ever heard in my 30 + years in Pro Audio." Less than 20 of the 75-15 Universal Equalizers were manufactured and one is featured at the Museum of the Science and Technology in Milan.
According to John Peluso most of the early Siemens ELA 75 series modules were designed by Dick Swettenham of Helios - and operate off the same -24VDC (positive ground) as the early Helios modules/consoles. From the manual:
"The difference in the levels of two different filter units does not exceed +/-1 dB and the frequency accuracy is in the order of 1%. The filter units can therefore be used in stereophonic chains since they make it possible to apply the same correction in both stereo channels by identical settings of the controls of the two filters used. In view of the characteristics mentioned, the filter will serve well for measurements in which tolerances must be kept as small as possible."