Help - Developing my audio knowledge and understanding of my own preferences

Feb 27, 2013 at 5:33 PM Post #16 of 21
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Well, mostly true :) There are some down sides to taking a pair of headphones and making them flat via EQ. The biggest is that the EQ doesn't accompany the headphones everywhere they go. I use J.River as my media player and have an EQ within that, but all the sound that doesn't go through J.River isn't eq'd. No parametric EQ on my iPod or friends laptop, etc. etc. but you have a point, the scientific, tested, and objective perspective is certainly the far cheaper one to have.

This is true, but it won't be long now until Android/iOS powered players that can run apps are the standard DAP. At which point everyone has access to portable 10 band EQ and I can mock without guilt.
 
In the meantime, the Clip+ is cheap, small enough to swallow (umm... if you really wanted to) and the 3 peak filters its Rockbox implementation provides are pretty reasonable in practice. 
 
Feb 27, 2013 at 5:41 PM Post #17 of 21
10 band EQs can't really do much and are extremely unpredictable. Parametric or bust.
 
I gave up on EQing a while ago because I spend a very large amount of time gaming with my headphone's. I don't want to settle for my soundcard's EQ possibly making things worse, so I'd rather just adjust to the signature.
 
Feb 27, 2013 at 6:03 PM Post #18 of 21
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10 band EQs can't really do much and are extremely unpredictable. Parametric or bust.

 
Sensibly, this is true and three peak filters should be enough for 99% of ears - a few people only have one peak to take out, the genetically talented bastiches.
 
But 10 band EQs look so retro cool! Just like Island Earth style valve amps, I suppose. I would also like to possess a theromin and that strange objet d'art glass panel that sat behind Commander Straker's desk in UFO. (Which turned out to be an escape hatch, I believe.) Oh - and one of these:
 

 
That's the giant mutated ant, not the chick in the hat - because I already have a girlfriend, but I don't own any giant insects.
 
Feb 27, 2013 at 8:46 PM Post #19 of 21
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Question about this: when it comes to measurements, and assuming the measurements are 'very good', what do they influence? Is it just frequency response and the ability to maintain it as required power increases?

It's not just maintaining when power increases, it's maintaining a flat response into a complex load.  Yes, that's the challenge. 
 
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Just as an example: I stopped believing that amps could improve soundstage long ago, but do they for instance affect the quality of the imaging? Or, to better put it, do they influence it? That is to ask, can an underpowered and badly measuring amp fowl up things such as imaging?

Well, a bad amp can fowl up a lot of things, sort of hard to say without specific cases.  I can't really comment on all the degrees of bad, but to invert the question, an amp that can supply a low impedance source to the load, and do so without significant distortion, response anomalies or phase shift, and has both channels matched well should provide optimal imaging. 
 
Feb 27, 2013 at 9:19 PM Post #20 of 21
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It's not just maintaining when power increases, it's maintaining a flat response into a complex load.  Yes, that's the challenge. 
 
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Well, a bad amp can fowl up a lot of things, sort of hard to say without specific cases.  I can't really comment on all the degrees of bad, but to invert the question, an amp that can supply a low impedance source to the load, and do so without significant distortion, response anomalies or phase shift, and has both channels matched well should provide optimal imaging. 


Okay, and so by 'optimal imaging' you mean the maximum (audible) amount of imaging that is produced by the transducer? And that would also then be true for soundstage for instance, that in a best case scenario, the amp allows for maximum sounstage as is produced by the transducer?
 
The reason I am asking is because it would make it perfectly clear to me why in terms of sound quality, at a point, all amps will perform the same given they are built with flat (or otherwise comparable) EQ in mind.
 
Feb 28, 2013 at 4:09 AM Post #21 of 21
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Okay, and so by 'optimal imaging' you mean the maximum (audible) amount of imaging that is produced by the transducer? And that would also then be true for soundstage for instance, that in a best case scenario, the amp allows for maximum sounstage as is produced by the transducer?
 
The reason I am asking is because it would make it perfectly clear to me why in terms of sound quality, at a point, all amps will perform the same given they are built with flat (or otherwise comparable) EQ in mind.

Yes, a good amp just gets out of the way and lets the transducer do its best.  I'm not sure how you'd separate imaging and soundstage.  I know what the terms mean, I just can't see what would affect one without affecting the other.  
 
The key to best image and soundstage beyond good amplifier design are precise channel to channel matching, which isn't really hard.  But a cheap volume control that doesn't rack well has a serious impact, as does anything else that would result in a difference between left and right cause at the amp.  One problem with equalizers is making them exactly the same in both channels.  No problem in the digital domain, big pain in the analog domain.
 
 I cannot completely agree with your last statement, though.  There are many ways to build amps that are technically inferior.  Some of the Cmoy designs, for example, are really poor.  The way to say it is that amps that can deliver adequate power and flat response into a load with low distortion will all sound the same.  Once you throw EQ into the picture, all bets are off.  
 

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