A system for controlling the feed of a yarn to a textile machine or a metal wire to a coil winder. The yarn or wire unwinds from its spool and cooperates with a rotary member associated with its own rotation actuator before being directed to the machine. The yarn or wire has a characteristic value of tension and/or speed and/or quantity during this feed, and the actuator has a stator and a rotor acting on an exit drive shaft, which has its own piloting arrangement. The rotary member about which the yarn or wire winds is keyed onto the exit drive shaft. This control system measures the angular position of the drive shaft and compares an instantaneous parameter of that angular position to a prefixed characteristic value of the yarn or wire Command signals are then fed to the actuator's piloting arrangement to conform the instantaneous parameter with this prefixed value.