reginalb
1000+ Head-Fier
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So, I've held off on posting this too bluntly, but I feel that I've been in contact with their support team long enough (and through an update) that I should bring this to the attention of the community. Astell&Kern prominently advertises that the AK300 has a parametric equalizer, but it doesn't, and what is almost a PEQ is broken.
Here is their site:
Aside from the clear copy and paste (wherein they didn't update the text from the AK380 page) They are clearly claiming and defining parametric EQ. That they don't allow you to change the centers for your adjustments means that I wouldn't actually call it PEQ, since that is one of the defining characteristics. But they clearly lay out their own definition, devoid of this part of it, so I am actually fine with that. They were upfront and honest about this part of the implementation. But the fact that you can't actually change the Q-value, and out of the box they're extremely narrow, means that their PEQ, and really their EQ in general, is just broken.
Here was my attempt to fix its FR with my UM Merlins:
As you can see, it works to 0 the FR at the centers (and note that I am making an adjustment at each center) but the bandwidth of the adjustment is so narrow, that it returns to +.5dB (or -.5 in the upper bands) before the next EQ adjustment takes affect. So I reported this to their support team, and got no response. I followed up by sending them a FB message, tweeting at them, posting it on the site here, and emailing them again, and that lit the fire enough for them to tell me that they passed it on to development. But there has been an update since then, and no change.
I did a test this evening and set a single, +1.5dB adjustment at 1K, measured it with a test signal with the default Q-value of 2, then re-measured with the Q-value of 1. Note that I am also including a no EQ measurement:
The shift down, if you're unfamiliar, is due to the attenuation of the signal that comes with EQ, to prevent clipping. As you can see, adjusting the Q-value has no effect. I have no way of testing any of their other players, but this is pretty disturbing. There is clearly no backend code that is doing anything with these Q-Values other than saving them. The value is saved when I change it, so I know that it's being stored, it's just not being used.
Software bugs happen, but this one is pretty critical, and was reported with enough time before the last release that it should have been addressed (for disclosure: my initial message to them was June 30, their eventual reply after my poking was July 11). Definitely not stoked about my first A&K, parametric EQ was pretty important to me. I feel that other potential buyers should be aware of this issue.
Here is their site:
Aside from the clear copy and paste (wherein they didn't update the text from the AK380 page) They are clearly claiming and defining parametric EQ. That they don't allow you to change the centers for your adjustments means that I wouldn't actually call it PEQ, since that is one of the defining characteristics. But they clearly lay out their own definition, devoid of this part of it, so I am actually fine with that. They were upfront and honest about this part of the implementation. But the fact that you can't actually change the Q-value, and out of the box they're extremely narrow, means that their PEQ, and really their EQ in general, is just broken.
Here was my attempt to fix its FR with my UM Merlins:
As you can see, it works to 0 the FR at the centers (and note that I am making an adjustment at each center) but the bandwidth of the adjustment is so narrow, that it returns to +.5dB (or -.5 in the upper bands) before the next EQ adjustment takes affect. So I reported this to their support team, and got no response. I followed up by sending them a FB message, tweeting at them, posting it on the site here, and emailing them again, and that lit the fire enough for them to tell me that they passed it on to development. But there has been an update since then, and no change.
I did a test this evening and set a single, +1.5dB adjustment at 1K, measured it with a test signal with the default Q-value of 2, then re-measured with the Q-value of 1. Note that I am also including a no EQ measurement:
The shift down, if you're unfamiliar, is due to the attenuation of the signal that comes with EQ, to prevent clipping. As you can see, adjusting the Q-value has no effect. I have no way of testing any of their other players, but this is pretty disturbing. There is clearly no backend code that is doing anything with these Q-Values other than saving them. The value is saved when I change it, so I know that it's being stored, it's just not being used.
Software bugs happen, but this one is pretty critical, and was reported with enough time before the last release that it should have been addressed (for disclosure: my initial message to them was June 30, their eventual reply after my poking was July 11). Definitely not stoked about my first A&K, parametric EQ was pretty important to me. I feel that other potential buyers should be aware of this issue.
