[Alexander01]

I can't listen without Equalizer. It's boring and flat to me. I want dynamic and impact in the lowest ends and the detail in highest ends. You will never get that without EQ.

Some time back I was in a hifi store to try some speakers. There was a Marantz PM-11S1 connected to a lot of speakers from 300 to 3000 euro. I think there were +/- 20 different speakers in that room including Focal, JBL, Monitor Audio, KEF, TMA, Dali, Dynaudio, Wharfdale, Canton and B&W. There was a Music Hall DAC25.2 connected to the Marantz. I connected my laptop (that I had with me) to the Music Hall DAC via USB. When I played some 320 kbps MP3's on my laptop and switching between the speakers I found all speakers sounding boring. The high end wasn't that detailed as with my cheap-ass Creative Gigaworks 750/Creative X-Fi WITH EQUALIZER! So for fun I just enabled the Equalizer of my music player on the laptop (WMP) to boost the 31hz and 16khz with +12db. And guess what? All those expensive speakers just sounded ALOT better now. There was finally air, openness and detail! The sound became a lot more spacious and there was finally deep impactfull bass.

So even for high end HIFI stuff it's good to use an equalizer. You really get a lot more enjoyable sound!

 

[leeperry]

humm, I tried that Trident EQ in foobar and uLilith...it sounds so ugly in foobar, laughable.

anyway, it's good to EQ music...but movies need it too:

 

[Br777]

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry /img/forum/go_quote.gif humm, I tried that Trident EQ in foobar and uLilith...it sounds so ugly in foobar, laughable. anyway, it's good to EQ music...but movies need it too:

sometimes i wonder if you have bionic ears
or maybe a gazillion dollar soundsystem
im waiting for you to say something like " well i have to re-critique that last eq b/c i found a hair on my ear pads and it slightly masked the 7345.502 hz output ..."

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander01 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I can't listen without Equalizer. It's boring and flat to me. I want dynamic and impact in the lowest ends and the detail in highest ends. You will never get that without EQ.

You will never get that with EQ. EQ isn't going to improve the impact unless you're very careful to EQ only the frequencies that are hit at the right moment of a note and not EQ the rest of that note. A lot of impact comes from part of the bass being louder than the other, which is why lots of cheap impactful headphones don't reach very deep. And you're not adding detail by EQing. You're just making parts of the song louder so the details are more easily noticeable. You'd have the same effect by increasing the volume, the details just might be a little harder to detect because everything's louder.

Basically what you did is tricked your ears into thinking there was more impact and detail by making the extremes louder. The result is going to really unbalance the sound of the music. If you like it like that, then that's fine. Buy a headphone with a V-shaped response curve, like a Denon or Beyerdynamic. Then you'll get even more detail and the music will probably sound a little more natural. Don't you dare EQ those like that, though.

 

[germanium]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury /img/forum/go_quote.gif You will never get that with EQ. EQ isn't going to improve the impact unless you're very careful to EQ only the frequencies that are hit at the right moment of a note and not EQ the rest of that note. A lot of impact comes from part of the bass being louder than the other, which is why lots of cheap impactful headphones don't reach very deep. And you're not adding detail by EQing. You're just making parts of the song louder so the details are more easily noticeable. You'd have the same effect by increasing the volume, the details just might be a little harder to detect because everything's louder. Basically what you did is tricked your ears into thinking there was more impact and detail by making the extremes louder. The result is going to really unbalance the sound of the music. If you like it like that, then that's fine. Buy a headphone with a V-shaped response curve, like a Denon or Beyerdynamic. Then you'll get even more detail and the music will probably sound a little more natural. Don't you dare EQ those like that, though.

We talked to him before about this issue in anouther thread .He will likely comtinue this trend till he ruins his hearing. Flat may be boring but it is definately more accurate & has less risk of damaging speakers or hearing. If I owned a store & he came in & EQed my setups like that he would not remain in my store long as the risk of damaging my demo speakers would be quite high.

 

[leeperry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Br777 /img/forum/go_quote.gif sometimes i wonder if you have bionic ears or maybe a gazillion dollar soundsystem

well, compare your fav. EQ preset in foobar and ulilith...tell me that they sound perfectly identical to you!

I run XP though, it's said to be a different story on W7.

I have a modded cd1k(that runs the same drivers as the cd3k) and use AD797B opamps on a pretty good DAC...it sounds good to me

 

[Alexander01]

Quote:

Originally Posted by germanium /img/forum/go_quote.gif We talked to him before about this issue in anouther thread .He will likely comtinue this trend till he ruins his hearing. Flat may be boring but it is definately more accurate & has less risk of damaging speakers or hearing. If I owned a store & he came in & EQed my setups like that he would not remain in my store long as the risk of damaging my demo speakers would be quite high.

I don't listen to music at extreme volumes. One of the reasons I EQ the 31hz and 16khz is to get a more enjoyable 'bigger' sound at low volumes. If I turn up the volume without EQ then the mid-tones gets too loud for me and I don't like that. The mids should be smooth and mellow while the lowest and highest frequencies needs extra boost.

I don't want to buy a 10.000 dollar setup with SACD source to get the same dynamics and synergy I can get with MP3 and a good EQ with the right frequencies boost.

 

[leeperry]

Alexander, what's your setup? what are your sources? why would you arbitrarily boost frequencies this way?

AFAIK, the scope of this thread is about full bit-perfect VS following tutorials to kill middle ear resonances...not really using V shaped EQ's, but you're entirely free to like it like that, though! OTOH some Denon/Beyer headphones already have V-shaped EQ's, that might be worth looking into it.

 

[germanium]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander01 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't listen to music at extreme volumes. One of the reasons I EQ the 31hz and 16khz is to get a more enjoyable 'bigger' sound at low volumes. If I turn up the volume without EQ then the mid-tones gets too loud for me and I don't like that. The mids should be smooth and mellow while the lowest and highest frequencies needs extra boost. I don't want to buy a 10.000 dollar setup with SACD source to get the same dynamics and synergy I can get with MP3 and a good EQ with the right frequencies boost.

If you are using low volumes then try to EQ following the fletcher-munson curves for ear response. The sound would be more accurate at low volumes that way. Your EQ does not fully address this issue as the extreme boosts at both ends need to be accompanied with gradually more subtle boosts at lesser extremes centering around 500-4000Hz with no correction at these frequencies.

Parametric eqalizers are best for this type of correction as you can control the sharpness of the filter thus creating a smooth transition from one band to anouther with less lumps or dips outside of the frequency center band corrections.

Any boost however should be accompanied with an overall reduction of volume in the digital domain to prevent digital clipping during boosting individual frquencies.A 12db boost at any given frequence requires a cut in overall volume of 12db to prevent digital clipping, especially on pop, rock & electronical music. Then boost the overall volume back up to desired level in the analog domain with a preamp or powered speakers volume knob.

Boosting anouther frequency as well by that much requires futher reduction in volume as these frquencies ride on each other so if you boost 31Hz by 12db & then boost 16KHz by 12db the 16KHz rides on the 31Hz signal thus really strong bass + strong treble will clip even if the bass by itself does not clip. 16 KHz usually reqires less cut overall than 31Hz does because of the relative energy of treble at that frequency in most music is lower but a cut in overall digital volume is still reqired to prevent clipping. Electronica music is an exception however as they can have very high energy even in the treble.

All of this assumes a listening level that on average is well below 85db. At an average listening level of 85db the settings should be flat. 85db is not an extreme volume by the way & can be achieved with an average of less than 5 watts per channel with average efficiency speakers in an average room. This leaves plenty of headroom for music peaks found in most music. Average listening levels should be lower for classical music as that is what you would experience in concert & classical music typically has wider dynamic range & thus needs the extra headroom that a lower average loudness provides. This lower volume for classical music should not be EQed in the same way as other music as you would expect lower average volumes in concert but higher peaks.

 

[Br777]

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry /img/forum/go_quote.gif well, compare your fav. EQ preset in foobar and ulilith...tell me that they sound perfectly identical to you! I run XP though, it's said to be a different story on W7. I have a modded cd1k(that runs the same drivers as the cd3k) and use AD797B opamps on a pretty good DAC...it sounds good to me

hmmm.. well i do run win7..
youre gonna make me download another music player now!

... ugh.. it never ends...

actually ive been meaning to try out lilith, though that brings me to a question...

assuming foobar wasapi is bit perfect, wouldnt switching to another player that did bit perfect be irrelevant... could anything change?

 

[leeperry]

bit-perfect

players and digital cable sound different to me, and to many other ppl too...foobar and uLilith in 100% bit-perfect ASIO do sound different to me, and so does Reclock.

 

[Alexander01]

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry /img/forum/go_quote.gif Alexander, what's your setup? what are your sources? why would you arbitrarily boost frequencies this way? AFAIK, the scope of this thread is about full bit-perfect VS following tutorials to kill middle ear resonances...not really using V shaped EQ's, but you're entirely free to like it like that, though! OTOH some Denon/Beyer headphones already have V-shaped EQ's, that might be worth looking into it.

Setup:
Corsair HX620W -> ASUS P5K Deluxe -> Creative X-Fi Titanium -> Creative Gigaworks S750

By default this setup sounds boomy and muffled to me. There is no air and openess. So i'm forced to use an EQ to get tighter bass (-12db 62hz), deep impactfull bass (+12db 31hz) and spacious airy detailed treble (+12db 16khz).

I'm planning to replace this setup but I do not really know where to start. I could buy a better soundcard/PSU but I think it won't change that much to the way I want it to change. I think the big problem is that computer audio always stays noisy. I think you need to move to seperate amp/dac that is connected via spdif to get a cleaner/clearer sound. But the problem is that I don't like the flat HiFi sound from an external AMP/DAC. I feel soundcards have more dynamics, imaging, soundstage, but they don't have the clearness (without EQ) you get with an external DAC/AMP via spdif. This is mainly due the noisy ATX PSU's I think.

What i'm searching for is a solution to feed a very good soundcard with very clean power. For example, a fanless linear PSU in ATX format. It think it will be a huge improvement in soundstage/imaging/bass impact/treble quality/synergy... Exactly the things that i'm looking for.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

My D2000 has gotten me to try EQ. Before with my HD600 and SR60 I didn't feel the need to EQ. The headphones sound fine as is. The D2000 is different. It wants some EQ. I gave in and now EQ it sometimes, but not always.

I use the EQ with the D2000 to boost the midrange frequencies where the D2000 is recessed. It's very helpful for rock music because guitar and vocals are often in that recessed range (and rock generally sounds better more forward) and also helps to improve timbre jazz and classical. EQ is a PITA though. One more thing (actually it's more than just one thing) to deal with. Messy. There's compromises. But the overall benefit is worth it.

I still don't bother doing any regular EQ with my HD600 and Grados or any other headphone.

I haven't gone through and done the whole EQ your headphones to fix the ear canal resonances and that sort of thing. I only EQed the D2000 to fix the midrange and did it mostly by ear with some reference to the FR graph at HeadRoom. I should do the sine wave sweep thing and the full on EQ balance just to see what it is like. I'll get around to it sometime.

I've tried Electri-Q in Foobar. Unfortunately it doesn't work in J River Media Center and I primarily use JRMC so I had to look for a different EQ. I've been using EasyQ. It seems to work and sound fine. I need to try some others.

Before doing the EQ thing for my D2000 I'd never listened to various EQs for sonic differences. I didn't use EQ so why bother. Now that I'm using EQ it's something new to have to fuss over. Some of the EQs I've tried have not been as sonically pure as I would like. Some would lose the air and ambiance even though I was only adjusting midrange frequencies below 4K. Some had a weird honky effect on the midrange. Some had other weird effects. Digital EQ seems to need some special care and attention and knowledge by the person developing it. Not so easy to get right. Easy to get wrong or do poorly.

 

[Alexander01]

The EQ is Windows Media Player 11/12 is very good. I'l prefer it above every other EQ including the ones from the Xonar and X-Fi. Problem is that this EQ starts to clip or constantly adjust the volume if you boost the frequencies too much. The only thing that helps is reducing the input volume from the audio codec. But that results in a lower Signal Noise Ratio.

 

[leeperry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander01 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Creative Gigaworks S750 By default this setup sounds boomy and muffled [..] a fanless linear PSU in ATX format. It think it will be a huge improvement in soundstage/imaging/bass impact/treble quality/synergy

well, I think that's just how your kit sounds....you can feed it anything you want, it'll always be "boomy and muffled".

I really don't mean to sound patronizing, but I honestly believe that you're chasing the wrong culprit here.

a quality PSU will make the trebles less harsh and agressive, but it won't turn a bunch of Creative speakers into a KRK professional monitoring set up.

sell this kit on whatever forum or ebay, get a proper professional kit from a more serious brand...and your current sound card will sound like night an day for sure!

then you can use some Digital Room Correction(using a cheap measurements microphone) and EQ each speaker to match the listening room(as all the walls and your furniture are resonating like mad).

better get 2 quality professional monitors than 8 crappy ones...especially considering that you're talking about music listening, and that there's always ways(such as "Dolby Virtual Speakers") to "cheat" the human brain into -more or less- believing that the room is full of speakers.