[laelle]

It's crazy... I keep finding frequency response measurements and they're all different.

 

[MindsMirror]

What headphone did you EQ? I'd be interested to see your settings if you'd like to post a screen shot. If you like more bass you can use an EQ to flatten out some peaks and valleys in the response, but keep an overall bass heavy shape.

 

[laelle]

  What headphone did you EQ? I'd be interested to see your settings if you'd like to post a screen shot. If you like more bass you can use an EQ to flatten out some peaks and valleys in the response, but keep an overall bass heavy shape.

Hello MindsMirror! It's the Sony MDR-Z7 with;
 

 
I basically EQed frequencies back to 0dB, it sounds something really close to the default EQ of Beats Pro I also own...
 
Yes, I kinda like boosting the 31Hz!
 
Here is the other one;
 

 
Ahh I tried this one and it's a lot better!

 

[MindsMirror]

I was reading a few day ago about EQing speakers. People tend to prefer a frequency response that slopes down by about 6dB from 20Hz to 20KHz. So you probably don't want to adjust all the frequencies exactly to 0dB since that headphone already has the gradual sloping shape, and instead try to just flatten out the bumps.
 
Have you seen this tutorial? It requires more effort than using a multi-band equalizer and adjusting based on the graphs (I guess that's what you're doing), but you can get really good results this way.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/615417/how-to-equalize-your-headphones-advanced-tutorial-in-progress

 

[laelle]

  I was reading a few day ago about EQing speakers. People tend to prefer a frequency response that slopes down by about 6dB from 20Hz to 20KHz. So you probably don't want to adjust all the frequencies exactly to 0dB since that headphone already has the gradual sloping shape, and instead try to just flatten out the bumps.
 
Have you seen this tutorial? It requires more effort than using a multi-band equalizer and adjusting based on the graphs (I guess that's what you're doing), but you can get really good results this way.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/615417/how-to-equalize-your-headphones-advanced-tutorial-in-progress

Yes, flatten out the bumps at least the best I can do.
 
The tutorial is very good!
 
I know you can use VST effects that uses more precise EQing than a graphic equalizer to get all the curves. I used to do it this way, but I can't remember the VST I used...
 
Electric-Q seems to be nice though!
 
Thank you very much!
 
(now if I could just understand why the graphs are so different about the Sony MDR-Z7 frequency response and which one is best)

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by laelle /img/forum/go_quote.gif

 

And then there's subwoofers... how are subs neutral? Yet they're widely accepted...

 

What makes you think subwoofers aren't neutral? Enclosure design, crossover settings and gain settings all play a part, plus room acoustics. It all depends on how they're used, basically. You can have somebody use a 12in sub for his HT and set the gain so that explosions will rock his whole house, while there are people who just set the low pass crossover to meet where their speakers roll off and then set the sub gain so it's not louder than the rest of the speakers. In some cases, like pro audio monitoring subs, the subs will take the line signal from the preamp, apply filters both ways and send the low pass to its amp while routing the line level signal with a high pass out to the monitors. Basically, if your speakers in their specific enclosures have a -3dB drop off point at 55hz, set the sub to 40hz at 12-18dB/octave, and then even with your ears you can level match this well enough. If the bass guitar sounds like a mudslide, turn it down.

 

Similarly, just because you've seen too many black SUVs with gigantic square subwoofers from Kicker all blinged out and trying to shatter their windshield using the wildest ported box designs and 1,000watt amplifiers, doesn't mean that there aren't people who design their subwoofer box for a flat response and then apply a proper RTA measurement to set the gain, crossover, time alignment, and then RTA again to polish the response with strategic EQ adjustments. Some of them will even mount the subwoofer on the dashboard, not to make them louder with less power, but to rely less on time alignment (which will only work for one seat in the entire cabin) to ensure that you will still hear the thump of the bass drum from the front instead of the rear (unless Reed Richards decides to play drums, and puts the bass drum behind the audience to show off how far he can stretch). The mere fact that you don't know what cars have this is the proof of their success in reaching their system design goals, because you obviously had no idea they even had a sub setting off car alarms at the parking lot much less rattle your windows from two lanes away at a traffic light.

 

Just because you can hear this from two lanes away...

 
...doesn't mean you've never been anywhere near something like this.
(rear)

(front)

 

 

There's an entire science to subwoofer enclosure design, in home audio people just go for prebuilt boxes but people in car audio have to look at those graphs to see how flat the response is, or if they'll boost and at what frequency that port will boost, and then there's a lot of tuning involved. Even my current processor has an Audyssey tuning system that will auto-EQ everything using reference tones/tracks used by /////ALPINE in their lab, plus time alignment as it measures the delay from each speaker. The only problem with that system is that Alpine's lab is very quiet, so if you so much as breathe loudly in the cabin while tuning it, you screw up the whole tuning process.

 

 

[laelle]

 

 

What makes you think subwoofers aren't neutral? Enclosure design, crossover settings and gain settings all play a part, plus room acoustics. It all depends on how they're used, basically. You can have somebody use a 12in sub for his HT and set the gain so that explosions will rock his whole house, while there are people who just set the low pass crossover to meet where their speakers roll off and then set the sub gain so it's not louder than the rest of the speakers. In some cases, like pro audio monitoring subs, the subs will take the line signal from the preamp, apply filters both ways and send the low pass to its amp while routing the line level signal with a high pass out to the monitors. Basically, if your speakers in their specific enclosures have a -3dB drop off point at 55hz, set the sub to 40hz at 12-18dB/octave, and then even with your ears you can level match this well enough. If the bass guitar sounds like a mudslide, turn it down.

 

Similarly, just because you've seen too many black SUVs with gigantic square subwoofers from Kicker all blinged out and trying to shatter their windshield using the wildest ported box designs and 1,000watt amplifiers, doesn't mean that there aren't people who design their subwoofer box for a flat response and then apply a proper RTA measurement to set the gain, crossover, time alignment, and then RTA again to polish the response with strategic EQ adjustments. Some of them will even mount the subwoofer on the dashboard, not to make them louder with less power, but to rely less on time alignment (which will only work for one seat in the entire cabin) to ensure that you will still hear the thump of the bass drum from the front instead of the rear (unless Reed Richards decides to play drums, and puts the bass drum behind the audience to show off how far he can stretch). The mere fact that you don't know what cars have this is the proof of their success in reaching their system design goals, because you obviously had no idea they even had a sub setting off car alarms at the parking lot much less rattle your windows from two lanes away at a traffic light.

 

Just because you can hear this from two lanes away...

 
...doesn't mean you've never been anywhere near something like this.
(rear)

(front)

 

 

There's an entire science to subwoofer enclosure design, in home audio people just go for prebuilt boxes but people in car audio have to look at those graphs to see how flat the response is, or if they'll boost and at what frequency that port will boost, and then there's a lot of tuning involved.

 
Ahh... I got confused and let out a comment that didn't make any sense, my bad!
 
And absolutely, subwoofers have incredible low range and can unleash all realistic proportions of the low end segment!
 
It's because I'm trying to EQ my phones but things have become very twisted!
 
I found five, FIVE different frequency response measurements and I'm very confused which is neutral and which is not...

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by laelle /img/forum/go_quote.gif

 

I found five, FIVE different frequency response measurements and I'm very confused which is neutral and which is not...

 

It depends on the measurement set-up used, and also what is being shown by the graph to begin with (ie scale/range, plus some have some kind of compensation applied, etc). In any case while measurements can vary in some details the most salient info remains the same - where the spikes and dips are. And as already mentioned above, you just trim the spikes and then maybe boost where it's deficient. Still, at the end of it, the question is whether your EQ tool (app or hardware DSP) can actually zero in on what frequency the spikes and dips are centered on.

 

[laelle]

 

 

It depends on the measurement set-up used, and also what is being shown by the graph to begin with (ie scale/range, plus some have some kind of compensation applied, etc). In any case while measurements can vary in some details the most salient info remains the same - where the spikes and dips are. And as already mentioned above, you just trim the spikes and then maybe boost where it's deficient. Still, at the end of it, the question is whether your EQ tool (app or hardware DSP) can actually zero in on what frequency the spikes and dips are centered on.

Yeah... sometimes the scale is not clear like Magnitude dB (don't know what it stands for) and it goes from 70dB (bottom) to 120dB (top).

Another (Magnitude dB) goes from -100dB (bottom) and 0dB (top).
 

 
I'm not much of a connoisseur in the domain...

 

[MindsMirror]

The thing about decibels (that's what dB stands for) is that it is a relative scale which tells you how loud something is in relation to something else. So it doesn't really matter exactly what the values are, only what they are in relation to other values. Each of the graphs used different reference points so one is centered around about 90dB and the others are around 0 or -10dB, but the shape of the curve and the values relative to other points on the curve are all very similar. For example, that dip in the frequency response just above 1KHz is about 7dB deep in all of the graphs.

 

[laelle]

  The thing about decibels (that's what dB stands for) is that it is a relative scale which tells you how loud something is in relation to something else. So it doesn't really matter exactly what the values are, only what they are in relation to other values. Each of the graphs used different reference points so one is centered around about 90dB and the others are around 0 or -10dB, but the shape of the curve and the values relative to other points on the curve are all very similar. For example, that dip in the frequency response just above 1KHz is about 7dB deep in all of the graphs.

Ahh alright! I EQed it accordingly then! Thank you guys!
 
(It still feels like a combination to open a safe though)
 
After trying all the measurements, I found one better than the others but I still feel like something could be done better...