[timb5881]

Eq used to be a nasty word for audiophiles back in the day. My first stereo I bought back in the mid 70's, I added a passive Radio Shack on, and from memory, I thought it sucked, caused all kinds of phase shifts. As of late, the Schiit Loki Mini seems to be a big sensation in the Headphone community, and I see many posts on using digital eq. So what has been a hit and what has been a miss? I have tried both recently, a 30 year old Kenwood active EQ and various EQ with FooBar2k. One I have found interesting is Reveal from Audeze, which is a free download of various eq settings for their headphones, but I experiment with it on all of my headphones.

 

[MikeW]

external is easier. Less issues with various software to deal with, it just works. I have a Loki Mini, and an RME ADI-2. The RME obsoleted the loki for my needs, both are better then software EQ, because they are systemwide and don't rely on plugins, or specific pieces of software.

 

[castleofargh]

digital options are massively more versatile. nowadays they can do typical digital stuff, but also simulate analogue EQ very well( usually with lower distortions and noise). I know people who hate minimum phase filters, I only see different options for different purposes. some linear phase options will be very CPU hungry so it's always good to keep that in mind for those who want to play or do intensive rendering on that same computer.
the accuracy of the settings on a computer will usually be much better compared to some physical sliders or knobs.

I don't really have an opinion about which EQ is good and which one is bad, different EQ will offer different settings, those with complicated options might be less intuitive, professional stuff might have 99% of the options that will be meaningless for amateur audiophiles, so justifying their purchase may be arguable. it's really a matter of what you expect to do with your EQ. in my case, something like the Loki is useless. I could sometime make do with only 4 bands, but fixed frequency and Q, no way. but that's me and my use of EQ. some people get uneasy when an EQ is too complicated, in the portable world, for years I've read people saying how they liked the EQ on Sony DAPs, when it was 4 fixed bands and and a bass boost. those people just happened to enjoy those minimalist options and that's fine too.

 

[MikeW]

The hardware EQ i use in my DAC is 5 band, you can choose any frequency you want, and Q up to 9.9. Different shelf options as well. It's quite versatile. It's still a "Digital" EQ, but at the hardware level so no fussing with stupid software. I use my PC to listen to multiple apps and games and content, I don't want to figure out EQ for everything.. one and done. Also works for Room correction on my powered monitors. This is with the RME ADI-2. The Loki is still pretty great, for the same reasons of simplicity, and system wide, but far less capable, as an analog device. I'd still prefer Loki to a mish-mash of various plug ins, and buggy software. For example if you listen to Spotify, Tidal, and Qobuz, or even any one of the above, and you also listen to Foobar, and you also watch youtube, and you also game... you need different software for each of these, and hack's and/or workarounds for the software that does not support EQ, it's a huge hassle. I know about Equalizer APO, and Sonarworks, and they don't work well for me, for one reason or another.

 

[APK000]

I am confused which one is better. The hqplayer allows user to use cuda offload to do floating point computation just as those devices with dsp chip inside do. I haven't played the convolution setting in hqplayer. I am really wondering which one will be better.

 

[maxtreme]

Always used external hardware EQ tunner