[quote author="jlarcombe"]Jakob,
When you say a 'more gentle' EQ, are you referring just to the sonic quality, or is the range of available Q reduced by this modification?[/quote]
The function stays the same, only the sound becomes actually useable also for mids and high.
The 33079 simply distorts significantly less at high gains. And high gains are needed in this circuit. The reason for the distortion rising heavily with frequency in the eq is the gain-bandwidth-product limitation. You run out of negative feedback gain, and without proper feedback to keep things tidy, the TL074 distorts REALLY bad - figures around 20% are mentioned.
The 33079 has much better "native" distortion figures, making it less dependent on a high GBP for keeping things sounding natural.
Jakob E.