[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fewtch I got enough tweaking issues here with a vintage turntable... in fact I listen to vinyl very little because the urge to continue tweaking my vinyl setup is highly annoying!

Oh how well I remember that! Umh.

Shades of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

This really isn't about the bedeviling urge to tweak in ever decreasing circles; it's more about getting the headphone (or anything else for that matter) to sound "right" to a first approximation. In other words, you open the door just wide enough to let the music (or voice or Saturn V rocket) in, and no further, to keep the madness out.

True obsessive tweaking results, like OCD, from what we might call a closed feedback loop, where nothing can get in to extinguish the loop-- eg, you change something on your turntable, and it sounds different, but you have to go into another loop to decide if this particular "different" is actually "better", and on it goes. With phones EQing, you have to start out with the confidence to know pretty much how the 'phones should sound, and stop when that goal is reached. Otherwise, you're right, you could end up in an endless howling tweaker loop. Just thinking about it gives me the willies.

The easiest way to keep from spinning out of control is to use simple tone controls. I find the ones on the old Hafler preamps very practical: a variable-turnover bass control and a standard fixed-turnover shelving type treble, although a variable-turnover treble control might've been better still.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wualta Besides, true tweaking results, like OCD, from a closed feedback loop where nothing can get in to extinguish the loop-- you change something, and it sounds different, but you have to go into another loop to find out if this particular "different" is actually "better", and on it goes. With phones EQing, you have to start out with the confidence to know pretty much how the 'phones should sound, and stop when that goal is reached. Otherwise, you're right, you could end up in an endless howling tweaker loop. Just thinking about it gives me the willies.

Heh, I know what you mean. Well, my HD580 and DT880 already sound close enough to neutral to my ears. The Portapro could use a lot of tweaking, but I don't listen to it very often.

 

[wualta]

I think you've got the idea. Once you start using parametrics and 1/10th-octave graphics, you've started down the road to brittle, despairing incapacitation. If the 'phones require that much work, you either need to know the billion ways you could mess them up even more-- ie, you need to know what you're doing-- or else you need to toss the 'phones to a newbie and get some better ones.

I mean, even a headphone nut must have his limits.

 

[sbulack]

Another happy user of the Behringer DEQ2496 here. It's got 64 slots to remember the full instrument setup configuration. For the wide variety of music I listen to, I've identified about 8 subtly different settings that optimize the sound. For any CD I want to play, I recall the setup from memory that best suits it and then it's just relaxing listening. I don't find at all that it's a constant tweaking distraction. And, as a really nice bonus, the DAC in the DEQ2496 delivers VERY decent analog audio with an expansive, clean and coherent soundstage. A pair of XLR-to-RCA adapters with pin 2 hot and pins 1 and 3 tied together, and I've got a pair of RCA jacks ready for interconnection to my unbalanced amp. I'm really happy with the choice of the DEQ2496 for about the price of another pair of good headphones. I basically LOVE the sound of the headphones that I already own, and I find that subtle adjustments of the frequency spectrum into them based on what I'm listening to can really make the sound that they deliver shine. I'm finding the DEQ2496 to be a good instrument for finding and applying those adjustments.

 

[Emon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by redshifter i don't think it's the right way to fix sound. i've done a lot of work with digital and analog eq and it almost always sucks the air out of recordings.

How does digital EQ "suck the air out of recordings"? All it does is emphasize the frequencies you tell it to, and by how much you tell it to. There is no signal degradation. Digital EQ is as good or as bad as you make it.

I typically only equalize for bass boost, mainly because I don't have the patience to do any fine tuning across the frequency range. It's also very difficult without an accurate frequency response graph of the headphones you're using. If you had one it would be very easy to compensate for a headphone's various dips and peaks in its response. You could potentially alter it's sound completely, providing there isn't significant distortion (which there usually is, unfortunately).

Why isn't equalization the "right way" to fix sound? I certainly respect people's opinions, but only if they are valid. That is, they need a real reason. Mystic "ooh no life in the recording" arguments don't fly.

(By the way, this post was not directed at redshifter, but the general community)

 

[redshifter]

Quote:

How does digital EQ "suck the air out of recordings"? All it does is emphasize the frequencies you tell it to, and by how much you tell it to. There is no signal degradation. Digital EQ is as good or as bad as you make it.

i don't know how it does. to my ears, it does, and that's what matters to me. if eq sounds good to you, it is good. it doesn't to me, and i'm a huge eq fan at heart. who am i to say a recording is "bad"? the smiths have many really tinny sounding songs, some really classic stuff too. i could try to eq it to sound fuller, but i'd be changing the character of the song, and the era it was mastered.

when i've applied parametric eq to recordings, it is done at 24/96 and software downsampled to redbook, to minimize any artifacting. i take great care and many hours listening to and tweaking any eq i apply, using monitors and headphones. in most cases, i abandon any eq for other tweaks, especially dynamic reconstitution, especially in live recordings. maybe i just suck at it, but to me i've never been happy for long with any kind of eq.

 

[fewtch]

Maybe it's worth pointing out that those who use PPA's or other amps with a bass boost feature are EQ'ing. Boosting bass is definitely applying equalization, albeit crudely.