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For itunes users....eq

post #1 of 6
12/16/10 at 9:28pm
Thread Starter 

Anyone using itunes, what is ur EQ setting? Any advice on setting it?

I found a "perfect EQ setting" article online and its better than flat but it seems like some of the audio is almost distorted, especially some of the bass notes.

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post #2 of 6
12/16/10 at 10:02pm

You will find that basically everyone on head-fi has the EQ turned off, for good reason. 

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post #3 of 6
12/16/10 at 10:25pm
Equalization should be done at the last stage, not in each individual component. You're correcting for the room and speakers, not the electronics. Use the equalizer or tone controls in your amp instead.

By the way, the reason the bass sounds distorted is because it's clipping. Normalize your tracks down to 85% to allow headroom if you absolutely must use software equalization.
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post #4 of 6
12/16/10 at 11:51pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post

Equalization should be done at the last stage, not in each individual component. You're correcting for the room and speakers, not the electronics. Use the equalizer or tone controls in your amp instead.

By the way, the reason the bass sounds distorted is because it's clipping. Normalize your tracks down to 85% to allow headroom if you absolutely must use software equalization.


I'll just turn it off. I dont need it, was just messing around. Just curious, how do I set it down to "85%"?

 

btw: I dont use an amp or anything, just my Yuin PK3 headphones plugged into the jack.

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post #5 of 6
12/17/10 at 10:09am
The problem with a lot of modern CDs is that they are "hot mastered", which means that the volume on them is turned up to right at the point of clipping. If you boost bass, it pushes it over the line and you get distortion. The way to deal with this is to batch process your audio files in a sound editing program and "normalize" them, which means turning down the overall volume of the tracks so you have headroom to be able to EQ without getting into the red zone. There are a lot of programs that do normalizing. Many have the option to lower each track individually, or to lower entire albums with each track volume relative to each other.

EQ is most needed for playing back on speakers, or for compensating for inexpensive portable headphones. If you don't use your music under either of these circumstances, you probably don't need to deal with it. Just leave the EQ off.

There's nothing wrong wit EQ. It's a tool for improving sound likenany other. Its effectiveness depends on how well you use it and for what purpose.
Edited by bigshot - 12/17/10 at 10:12am
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post #6 of 6
12/18/10 at 12:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by moofs View Post

I'll just turn it off. I dont need it, was just messing around. Just curious, how do I set it down to "85%"?

 

 


 

The iTunes EQ has a preamp slider.  You use that to adjust the level so you don't cause clipping.

 

If you boost a frequency band by 6 dB then you need to reduce the preamp level by 6 dB to compensate.  That will prevent the band that you boosted from causing clipping.

 

EQ used properly can be a good thing.  EQ used improperly is a bad thing.  I use EQ to fix frequency response issues with some of my headphones.

 

One thing you don't want to do is use EQ to try to get your headphones to play frequencies that the headphones just aren't able to do.  For example, if the headphones, just by their design nature, aren't able to produce bass below 80 Hz it is not a good idea to use EQ to try to force the headphone to play strong bass at 40 Hz cause you're just going to cause the headphones to distort.  Use EQ to help the headphone do what they can do, not to force the headphone to do what they can't.

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