My backround is in music recording working with MCI and Harrison consoles, very flexible recording and mixing, but filled with IC's, integrated circuits. They sounded great to us but I always ended up looking to equalizers to make sounds more "musical". One day we were unable to book our own studio and had to go a room with an Neve console, a bit of a bother because what would be a button push previously now became a patch cord inserted. Instead of the monitor pot being in line it was now a separate monitor section on the side. We had a good assistant and were able to get our days work started. After we finished tracking and were playing back I realized that things had changed forever for me, I had wanted to hear a quality in the sound and I had finally found it.
Rupert Neve is the creator of that sound and he didn't care what other folks did, he was on a mission to please his own ears.