Equalizers

You know, I read all over the internet about people searching for "warm" amplifiers, "warm" DACs, "warm" speakers, "neutral" speakers, "warm" amps to compensate for "bright" speakers, even "warm" CD players.
I got news for all yous folks- WARM or NEUTRAL or BRIGHT are determined by FREQUENCY RESPONSE CURVES as measured at your listening position. They are products of the sonic tendencies of your hardware, your environment and your ears.

A MEASURED FLAT FREQUENCY RESPONSE IN YOUR ROOM AT YOUR EARS SOUNDS HORRIBLE!
It is shrill, harsh and fatiguing- guaranteed.

Most people searching for "warm" amps are doing so to compensate for "flat" speakers in the ear sensitive frequencies because these frequencies are harsh to our ears. Our ears are begging us to cut these frequencies by a db or two. God forbid your speakers actually have peaks in the ear sensitive frequencies- they will be on an auction site in a millisecond unless your dealer has a good return policy.

YOU CAN ACHIEVE A VERY PLEASING WARM, NEUTRAL or BRIGHT MEASURED FREQUENCY RESPONSE CURVE IN YOUR ROOM AT YOUR EARS WITH VIRTUALLY ANY LEVEL OF HOME AUDIO HARDWARE PROVIDED YOU ACCURATELY MEASURE AND ADJUST THE RESPONSE CURVES.

AND IT WILL SOUND AWESOME!- BETTER THAN YOU MIGHT REALIZE REGARDLESS OF THE AMOUNT OF FIGURES YOUR HARDWARE IS WORTH.

You do the measuring with a PC, a microphone and some RTA software. I use the 99 buck, 1/3 octave TrueRTA on my laptop with a 30.00 dayton mic and a 30.00 microphone phantom power supply and a couple XLR cables.

Once you measure at your listening spot, you will see all the peaks and valleys in your unadjusted response curve. It ain't flat, that's for sure.
You adjust the curve by adding in a 31-band equalizer (I use an Alto AEQ231, which has a 117 db signal to noise ratio and can be had for about 150 or so- read no audible noise). I use it to make gentle cuts in certain frequencies so that my measured response curve takes on a certain shape- generally plus 5-10 db from 20 to 60Hz, gentle slope from 60Hz to flat at 160Hz, then flat from 160Hz to 1Khz, a slight dip (2-3 db) from 1Khz to 4Khz, dip centered at 3Khz back to flat at 4Khz, then a gentle downward slope taper from 4Khz to 20Khz, e.g. 1-2db per octave.
It is true- you should not use an EQ to boost frequencies- just to reduce them where needed.

I use the 31 band EQ because it is very surgical in its operation- it can reduce the offensive peaks without taking too many nearby frequencies down with it and thereby ruining the sound.

Fear not the big bad graphic equalizer you audiophiles! After all, some mighty ones were used in the process that brought the artist's recorded sounds to your playback media in the first place.

 

You don't have to yell.

 

sorry.

 

Even though I use an equaliser I don't agree with a lot you say avanti1960.

A flat EQ at the ear should be right because it means that the music response should be exactly as the producer intended (do producers assume a flat frequency response (FR) at the ears is likely?)

The problem with me and I'm sure many others is that a flat FR with a microphone is not a flat FR with your ears. Our ears have different abilities based on age and other deteriorations. Therefore it's better to have a flat response based on some type of test tones whilst listening from your chair. I for example need 4dB added to 6.3 kHz and 8kHz after microphone EQ for a level sound and my hearing rolls off at 10kHz and I can't hear 12.5kHz. Unfortunately if I add that 4dB, and so hear some useful rhythmic percussion which I miss with microphone flat EQ, it sounds harsh to me. I believe that is to do with the pain caused by the threshold of my loss of hearing, according to rbbert post 210:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...urate-i-cant-stand-it-sometimes.335418/page-9

I still haven't solved that conundrum. The annoying part is I can hear that percussion with headphones without discomfort or EQ.

 

There is too much fear of equalisers, started by the mad quest to rid hi-fi systems of all but the selector and volume control in the 80s. It's a trend which thankfully coming to an end.
Of course you can buy junk, but the products from most of the major manufacturers are transparent in circuit when set flat - or near as dammit.
Hi-fi systems aren't flat - certainly not when placed in a typical home environment. In addition very few people like flat, neutral sound IME.
I've lost count of the number of times someone has described hearing stunning transparency from a loudspeaker, only to find what they are describing is a liking for the EQd, breathy, presence boosted vocal. Ditto the musical and foot-tapping bass lines engineered by manipulating the bass end.

So if people like these fixed examples of EQ, it's crazy to poo-poo the option of gaining some user control.
It's born from some misplaced fixation on 'keeping the signal path simple' - and that's pure rot.

 

It may be 'pure rot' to you but to many others with ears its a nasty phasey mess that sounds nothing like the real thing
Including the man who designed your pre and power amp,Peter Walker
He wanted a wire with gain ,not equalisers.
His slope control is very sophisticated for the time (the 70s) and his amps sound dated now but his methodology was was fine,yours is not.

 

The problem with this theory is that you assume all the problems in the room can be solved with an equalizer, and the flaws are all centered around frequency response alone. They aren't. There's group phase delay, reverb, bass nodes, several different kinds of distortion, room reflections, tons of other stuff. Plus, if you move your position even a couple of inches, a lot of these factors suddenly change. It's just physics.

Read Floyd Toole's book Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms, which explains all of it much more thoroughly. I wish the solutions were as simply as just using a 31-band equalizer, but the reality is that they aren't. Changing the room is the real solution, and that requires tons of measurements, knowledge, and experience.

 

Ah, no.

The "Frequency Response" will be different in different parts of the room. Even if an equalizer did what it is supposed to, it wouldn't really deal with room resonances except on a gross level. Moving speakers around to positions where they can work properly or moving to a room with friendlier acoustics will do more good for that sort of problem.

The greater issue is that graphic equalizers, as regards distortion, are smoldering heaps of junk. If one has a playback system of reasonable resolution one will hear the sonic damage of your typical equalizer even when all controls are set to flat. And the further engaged the controls are, the more they will distort. In my experience, graphic equalizers do more harm than good.

 

As with most topics on here, it is all or nothing.

Pure love or pure hate. Never even close to a realistic reaction to something.

I have used a few over the years, and found my 2 band parametric to be extremely useful. It did not add any noticeable noise to the sound, and it was quite capable of fixing some minor ( 2-3 db ) issues in the overall frequency response.

I have also owned 2-3 "low cost" equalizers, and yes they did add "Some noise and distortion" to the sound, that was clearly audible, it was nowhere near the gross change that some are describing it out to be.

Everything has to be hyperbole in audio.

Day and night, Earth shattering, Horrible sonic sludge.....

They are okay for what they are.

 

I have an equilizer hooked up in my system and I like it...so there.

 

If you—of all people—can hear some noise and distortion added to the sound it is, ipso facto, horrible sonic sludge.

 

Robin, I can hear a lot of things, and I know what to listen for.

I think where many of us differ, is we all "Listen for" different things.

Some are radically upset to hear hiss, some any distortion, some anything that deviates from what they deem flat response.

There is no "One size fits all" audiophiles.

I have listened to nice decent speakers, that I was amazed that the owner did not care about or even seem to realize that there was next to nothing in the 28-40hz range.

To me that is essential.

I think we all put far different priorities on what we deem important.

 

I was mostly pulling your chain anyway. I can see how parametric equalizers could be useful. I've used them in recording/postproduction to good effect. But I never heard a graphic equalizer that did what it was supposed to do.

 

And I have heard several that did.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying they are audio perfection as with many things electronic, you give up a little in one thing to get something else.

To many some small anomoly in frequency responce, being flattened out a tad, more than makes up for any noise or distortion.

I am not out and out defending cheap ones, but I can see how Some would find them useful.

It depends on what priorities ones puts on different things.

To some the tonality and flatness of response is king as far as priorities.

 

Nonsense. A Quad tilt control, or step control, or bass/treble control uses analogue filters just like a conventional hardware EQ.
Getting a 'phasey mess' or not depends on settings used.
Suggesting Walker was anti EQ is preposterous since all of his pre amps right back to the Quad 22 incorporated EQ.

Walker's 'wire with gain' applies to power amplifiers. If it applied to the pre amps, they'd have been straight line designs.

 

Less of a 'smouldering heap of junk' than just about any turntable front end, if you want to start talking specs, including phase distortion, THD, IMD and response.
Most people find vinyl very enjoyable, so a little perspective is in order

 

Rob you are a rebel......

 

Tonal adjustments are the preserve of mastering engineers IMO, I haven't used a tone control since 1985.

 

Better alert your room and speakers, I bet they did not get the memo

 

I've been pretty much the same since selling the device that prompted my OP - but as noted I was curious if opinions had changed in that time - apparently not

 

If you like live audience or soundboard recordings from places like eTree you may find that you do indeed need to enter the preserve of the mastering engineer and EQ the music. EQs are good to have if you need one. There are free VST plugin parametric EQs like EasyQ. EQs are good tools to have when used responsibly. With great power comes great responsibility. Use your EQ power responsibly. Use it for the pursuit of sonic good, not evil.

The EQ curve I posted earlier in the thread is the curve I use to correct my Audeze LCD-2 headphones. That free EQ and that curve has saved me over $1000 by keeping me from needing a Senn HD800 or HiFiMan HE-6 for my classical music listening. UnEQed the LCD-2 sucks for classical. With EQ it is awesome. That's why I think EQs are awesome. I was careful to make sure that my EQ curve does minimal harm. I was careful to make sure acoustic recordings still sound awesome (getting the LCD-2 to sound awesome with acoustic was the whole point). It took some dialing in to get the settings good. It's not easy. Especially since I don't really know what I'm doing. I've got results that are good that I like. I'm happy. And I'm learning more as I experiment. It's just a shelf. Trying to do more correction that that results in more harm than good. It's a case where less is more. Don't make a curve that looks like an impossible roller-coaster ride.

I don't want to give up my EQ. But I'll also be very happy when I find some better headphones that don't need any EQ fixing.

 

Well, with those EQ curves, you sure won't!

 

EQs got a bad name for a few reasons:
- Yeah, mostly not built with good fidelity
- Cannot correct time domain problems (and various "frequency response" problems are actually time problems, i.e. reflections etc)
- Almost everyone tended to give a "smiley curve" boosting the hell out of the bass and treble. Impressive sounding, but hardly good fidelity.

Linn or somebody had an EQ with like 5 specific bands, to shade basic characteristics of recordings to match your system/room. Small amounts-let me stress small-of EQ judiciously applied can help things sound better in certain cases. But you need a flexible parametric or programmable to do that well I think.

 

I always wondered why so many recordings sound crappy that were produced/mixed/engineered in optimal audio conditions. While some sound fantastic while recorded in "not so optimal" spaces. I'm not just talking about recent trend with laptop recordings. I'm also curious why so many in the audio crowd are anti "one size fits all" when it come to their equipment's sonic characteristics (warm, bright, speakers, amps, cables etc) but knock tone controls and eq's. To me a tone control and eq is just a tool to assist in helping one achieve more musical enjoyment. Yes, i'm sure crappy eq's can bring phase, noise, etc. But nothing compares to the massive loads of crap sound quality that many audio expert engineers have produced.