Paul, It depends how you specify 'bandwidth', I suppose.
I did take a serious look at the 'G' EQ when it came out (we bought a few and installed them, but eventually removed them and I ended up designing my own, the "AAD"...) Using my default definition of the 'bandwidth' as being the distance between the two points at which the response deviates from flat (as opposed to distance between -3dB or any other arbitrary point) then I recall that the G did indeed get wide with taller boosts and deeper cut, not narrower as you might suggest. That was why it didn't do 'deep narrow notch' at all well: the bandwidth got so wide with progressively deepening cut that it started sucking lots of energy from the area around the center frequency, and pulled a lot of the character out along with any (f'rexample) untamable tom-tom ring, an area where the previous versions were more surgically useful, when drum tuning and mic selection/placement (you know, the
REAL way to solve the problem!) failed.
So unless I'm remembering very wrongly, I reckon I got it the right way round.
The Oxford EQ is a work of elegance. I also built an analog EQ several years ago (fifteen or more... perhaps the similar vintage to the 'G' design) that -like the Oxford digital EQs that I've played with- offered the use of the (usually redundant) 'Q' -or Bandwidth- control in shelf mode. (In a shelf, by definition the bandwidth should theoretically be infinite, but the slope of the flter -which in bell mode is proportional to the 'Q'- can still be altered, significantly improving the tonal range of options in the way the unit can be set)
Compasspnt, yes there was an EQ-P version. The uptake was miniscule. The curves were said to be "based on the Pultec" -Note that they don't claim they were really anything like the same! -That was a fourth option, but it was heavily based on teh topology of the brown 82E02 and had differing ranges for most of the controls in each band.
Other aftermarket versions that were produced were the AAD (Amazon Audio Developments) EQE-1 and the Maselec (designed and built by Leif Mases as a further development from the AAD after he worked on a couple of albums on mine and decided that he would also like to try and sell a few of his design. We both sold a few, but neither of us got rich doing it!
-A little aside: that was quite some gathering of minds at the console for the first album back in 1989... Leif Mases producing, myself engineering and the house tech who was red-hot on SSL consoles also. -If anything dared to go wrong during the 6 months or so that it took to record and mix, it was a race to see who could call the component number on the board first!!!
I think I might have a few of the unstuffed AAD boards in case anyone ever wants to try a fourth flavour!
The "balanced" buses: -the problem really only started to manifest itself after consoles started to be purchased in ever longer frame-sizes. The unbalanced summing had worked fine for a long time and with small buss lengths, but over 56 channels (unheard of in 1979 when the first E-series went into Ridge Farm in Dorking) was where it really became a problem. the high buss gains and the long antenna-like buses started to become an issue. My standard test to check the bus noise rejection before and after the quasi-balanced buss implementations (which included replacing ALL of the lower buss cards) was to place a Weller soldering iron transformer directly under the bus cards. It was a good way to dial out the noise, though I did find that there was rather little range on the trim pots after the mod was done...
Hell all in all, it was a stellar system: to think that it was designed and built in the 1970s and many of them today still soldier on... Not the cleanest sound -specially the earlier ones- but one of the most easily serviceable -especially so when you consider the incredible power of their automation and that they pioneered recall- consoles. Rock-solid mechanical construction.
The Console at Parr Street Studios
www.parrstreetstudios.com still has forty of the AAD EQ cards in the first forty channels, and it's where the last three Coldplay albums have been done, so it can't be all that bad, even though it's a simple design really!
Keith