hardware equalizer?

[carmatic]

hey guys, heres the deal... ive just got myself a first pair of IEM's , been using full size headphones up until now....

boy are these things sensitive ... what my headphone amp to these IEM's , is like speaker amps to my headphones ... anything above a quarter of the volume and its unbearaby loud... also there is alot of hiss that i couldnt hear with my fullsize headphones, its like i wasnt meant to use the amp at these levels

is there such a thing as a 'passive' equalizer where all the sliders start at the top? kind of like one of those in-line volume controls, but with a seperate one for each frequency band...
if you know what im talking about, you know, as opposed to 'normal' equalizers where the sliders start at the middle and you could turn it up as well as down ... right now i definitely dont need to turn anything up, i just want the volume to go down... well i want the highs and mids to go down more than the bass, anyway...

[boomy3555]

If you turn the volume down at either the source or Desktop amp to levels that will work with IEM's you will most likely get a lot of low volume Hiss. What you need is a good inline attenuator. 75-160 ohms. There are few if any inline EQ's (Koss comes to mind) but they start in the middle and only have three frequency adjustments. There is an eBay seller named aawan that sells inline attenuators and shure has a standard 50 ohm. Almost any regular desktop headphone amp will be a bit much for IEM's. I have customs @13ohms so I've "been There Done That" with all of my desktop amps.

[carmatic]

do you mean the Koss EQ50? to me that looks more like a 3 band battery powered amplifier... seeing that its got its own power source, its probably its own noise source as well, and the last thing i need is more power going into my IEM's

i really hope that building something like a passive inline equalizer myself wouldnt be my only choice...

[boomy3555]

For IEM's you won't find much in the way of Portable EQ. Attenuators are easy to buy and come in any value.That should take care of the low volume hiss. If you really want to adjust the SQ via EQ you may have to look at a source that has EQ adjustments.

[carmatic]

doesnt have to be portable... the reason im using IEM's is for their isolation, not for their portability... i'll be sitting at my desk the whole day, if i need to plug my IEM's into something else , that wouldnt be a problem

[boomy3555]

At a desk you have many EQ options but there so many perameters so it might be a good idea if you give us more information. What source do you listen to at work? what IEMs do you use. What amp are you driving them with.? etc. The Gear chain is important if we are to help you get what you want from your system.

[carmatic]

aah , good to see that its not that hopeless after all

okay for my amp, i have a 2008 Yulong DAH1 mark 1, but its way too overpowered so im not using it, right now im plugging the phones into the Realtek ALC260 audio-out onboard my computer...


my IEM's are the Philips SHE9850, on the box it says 115db SPL/mw @1khz

so is it correct to have it set up like amp --> equalizer --> attenuator --> IEM ?

[boomy3555]

Start by playing with the onboard sound EQ Itunes,Foobar,WMP, etc. and see if you can get your IEMs to "Taste" the way you like. Next get an inline attenuator to put between the headphone out and the IEM's It may seem silly to amplify something and then reduce the volume in the next step, but we need to get the source volume up to about 80% or you get low volume hiss. basically the amp can only amplify what the source is giving it and if the source is turned way down to compensate for the sensitive IEM's, them the amplifier will not get enough signal from the source and creates the hiss. After you have done those things, the next step would be to look for a good small DAC/AMP to run off of your USB and bypass the onboard soundcard. Although I find the Realtek to be one of the better stock cards. You may find that having the attenuator inline will make the sound warmer and clearer as more of the signal is getting out of the computer. You may like it just like that. But Baby steps for now.

Souncard>EQ>headphone out(amp)> inline attenuator>IEM's

[carmatic]

the Yulong DAH1 is a USB DAC ... its sitting there collecting dust for 2 reasons, one is the soundcard's EQ doesnt affect it, the other is like i said before its way too loud for my IEM's ...
i would really like to make use of the Yulong, for one thing , wont software equalizers leave artifacts? if the equalizer was analog and high enough quality, you'll preserve all the details... also, i get random pops and clicks coming out of the soundcard because of how badly the architechure of the computer is designed, but through the USB port this doesnt happen...

basically, the sooner i get off the onboard audio the happier i'll be... and the Yulong has way too much power... like dont you have 'passive' , unpowered equalizers out there? anything along the sound chain which takes away volume ought to take nothing else from the sound, am i right?

[boomy3555]

Give the attenuator a try first. They're pretty cheap and you can resell if necessary. I would go with the old standby of 75 ohms. If you're not sure just get a cheap inline volume control from RadioShack and give it a try. At least you'll have an idea whether you can lower the volume enough to even use the iEM"s with the Yulong. Google "passive Equalizer" and see what pops up. I think Berringer makes one that's not too pricey.

[boomy3555]

passive graphic equalizer - Google Product Search

[carmatic]

interesting... it seems that 'passive' doesnt mean 'unpowered' , because those car eq's seem to take power and can boost the frequency ranges.... i think they have a built in amp or something?
perhaps abit of terminology is in order

Operator Adjustable Equalizers: An Overview

Passive Equalizer. A variable equalizer requiring no power to operate. Consisting only of passive components (inductors, capacitors and resistors) passive equalizers have no AC line cord. Favored for their low noise performance (no active components to generate noise), high dynamic range (no active power supplies to limit voltage swing), extremely good reliability (passive components rarely break), and lack of RFI interference (no semiconductors to detect radio frequencies).

Disliked for their cost (inductors are expensive), size (and bulky), weight (and heavy), hum susceptibility (and need careful shielding), and signal loss characteristic (passive equalizers always reduce the signal). Also inductors saturate easily with large low frequency signals, causing distortion. Used primarily for notching in permanent sound systems.

Active Equalizer. A variable equalizer requiring power to operate. Available in many different configurations and designs. Favored for low cost, small size, light weight, loading indifference, good isolation (high input and low output impedances), gain availability (signal boosting possible), and line-driving ability.

Disliked for increased noise performance, limited dynamic range, reduced reliability, and RFI susceptibility. Used everywhere.

Graphic Equalizer. A multi-band variable equalizer using slide controls as the amplitude adjustable elements. Named for the positions of the sliders "graphing" the resulting frequency response of the equalizer. Only found on active designs. Both center frequency and bandwidth are fixed for each band.

now im confused :S
what we have here are multi band equalizers, which take power, and which are labelled as 'passive' ...
and yeah, im looking for a passive equalizer as defined by the article... too bad i dont fit the description of a 'permenant sound system' ...

[carmatic]

i've been trying to buy the er4p to er4s converter that awwan was selling on ebay ... but somethings bugged out with his listing, it keeps giving me an error when i try to pay for it...

so now i need to find somewhere else to buy an attenuator from

::edit:: i have found http://www.duncanamps.com/tsc/ , now all i need is for it to exist physically...