How to equalize your headphones: A Tutorial

[AlexRoma]

Great EQ post, AstralStorm. I shall not post mine, as your EQ is more simplified and works great.
 
I recommend every happy owner of these VSonic GR07 implement your EQ . It does magic to these earphones. EQ-ed, these sound almost perfect to my ears. Great affordable earphones. 
 

 

[AngryBaconGod]

Apologies in advance... I haven't read through all of this thread... is there an updated link for the pink noise and sine wave files (first link at the bottom of post 1)?

Thanks!
ABG

 

[WTFGoD]

 


This is how far i got befor realizing that my computer had an EQ setting that was ON ... on top(or bottom) of the EQ i was applying...deep depression has set in as my newbieness overwhelms me...

 
 

 
my knee jerk attempt to fix it... feel further than ever... sound is just so muddy
 
 
 
Pink noise
Wave sweep
 
also wondering if those are the correct files to be using woll testing an EQ setting...
 

 

[Audiophile1811]

Hi. I downloaded EasyQ and I don't understand installing it or working it whatsoever.
Can anyone guide me or help me install it on FooBar2000, I'd really love to use it.
BTW, Sorry I don't have time to read through this entire thread.  
Thanks!

 

[Argyris]

I haven't got a screen shot (I might come back and edit this), but I've used this technique now for both of my headphones. I finally got around to doing my DT880 this past weekend, having already done my SRH440 months ago. The curve I came up with has about nine different peak filters and is ridiculously complex, but I am absolutely sure that it's accurate. It's also incredibly extreme; my resonant peak is around 5800Hz and it's stacked on top of an already boosted (to my ears, obviously) portion of the response. This creates a notch of around 21dB (!), surrounded by a landscape of mostly -10dB. I always knew the DT880 seemed bright to me (though I spent a long time denying this to myself), and the things were giving me daily headaches. Now I know why!
 
The ultimate test was to A-B the EQ'ed DT880 with the EQ'ed SRH440. Since they both underwent the same process (though months apart), theoretically they should sound very similar in basic tonal balance. And they do! The Beyers extend more through the upper treble and I did a better job on them in this range than the Shures (which I'm considering redoing), but the overall tone of the two is very close. For the DT880, there is nothing of the Beyerdynamic sound left; the tone is completely devoid of character. This is about the ultimate endorsement possible. I finally feel like I got what I paid for as the DT880 now sounds incredible. It's also a great tool for my home studio.
 
Now somebody just needs to design a headphone amp with a built-in, high quality programmable parametric EQ that can be set by hooking it up to a computer and running its attendant software. To be clear, I'm not talking about a hardware EQ but an amp with a circuit devoted to processing any source signal with an EQ program stored in firmware. This EQ would need to have a lot of available bands. If such a thing exists, drop me a line because I'd love to check it out.

 

[matbhuvi]

Quote:

Hi. I downloaded EasyQ and I don't understand installing it or working it whatsoever.
Can anyone guide me or help me install it on FooBar2000, I'd really love to use it.
BTW, Sorry I don't have time to read through this entire thread.  
Thanks!

+1. Need some help here. I completed the sinegen part to get the resonant frequency. I downloaded Electri-Q. I am not clear on how to use that with foobar.
 

 

[AlexRoma]

You will need a VST manager to activate advanced plugins (like Electri-Q) on your audio player (Foobar2000).
 
1. Check out all available plugins in DSP Manager section (check my Screenshot ).
    If you find a plugin containing  "VST" word, activate it. If not, install one.
 
2. This is my favorite : George Yohng's VST Wrapper  . Very easy to install and use. All the needed tutorials included..
 
3. After you had activated VST manager, launch it, point out Electri-Q folder location, launch Electri-Q Editor. It should work now...
 

Spoiler: Edit%3A%20Added

George Yohng's VST Wrapper -> not a single crash/bug spoted , using Electri-Q ...
Works perfect for me, considering I still use older Foobar 0.9.5 version.
It's just the wonderful skin I love, not working on newer builds...

 
 
 
 

 

[Roller]

Quote:

You will need a VST manager to activate advanced plugins (like Electri-Q) on your audio player (Foobar2000).
 
1. Check out all available plugins in DSP Manager section (check my Screenshot ).
    If you find a plugin containing  "VST" word, activate it. If not, install one.
 
2. This is my favorite : George Yohng's VST Wrapper  . Very easy to install and use. All the needed tutorials included..
 
3. After you had activated VST manager, launch it, point out Electri-Q folder location, launch Electri-Q Editor. It should work now...
 
 

Actually, Yohng's VST Wrapper is no longer recommended, also it is flagged as an unstable component by foobar2000.
 
The best working VST wrapper is this one. It adds the benefit of integrating VSTs in foobar2000 perfectly.

 

[jerg]

Quote:

Actually, Yohng's VST Wrapper is no longer recommended, also it is flagged as an unstable component by foobar2000.
 
The best working VST wrapper is this one. It adds the benefit of integrating VSTs in foobar2000 perfectly.

How do I use that? I downloaded it and dropped the dll into the components folder, but then it gives error when I open foobar again, saying the  foo_vst.dll doesn't load...

 

[Roller]

Quote:

How do I use that? I downloaded it and dropped the dll into the components folder, but then it gives error when I open foobar again, saying the  foo_vst.dll doesn't load...

First of all, keep in mind that foo_vst is made for foobar 1.x, not previous 0.8.x or 0.9.x. And you can't have duplicates on the components folder or additional subfolders.
 
After that, just follow its instructions.

 

[TruBrew]

I have a Mac and am using Hear by Joesoft. It is working ok, but I am having issues getting any fine control with it. It is taming my STAX down, but veiling them a but at the same time.

 

[TruBrew]

I just found this for mac. It looks better, not to mention it is free. I can not figure out how to mark multiple points on the same Parametric EQ. Maybe someone else can figure out how to work it, and explain it to me and anyone else who may like to use it.
 
http://www.dctrwatson.com/2011/06/os-x-system-equalizer/
 
Edit: apQualizr works even better. It is a AU extension.

 

[TMRaven]

I tried following that guide, but am still left empty-handed after attempting to do what it said.  I'm getting sound through soundflower using the EQ I think, but it is definitely not what I EQ'd.
 
Edit:  Finally got it to work, but it seems very glitchy and at one point at even froze up with a very unpleasant sound until I had to switch my input from soundflower back to the external dac.  So far not looking very good.

 

[matbhuvi]

Quote:

You will need a VST manager to activate advanced plugins (like Electri-Q) on your audio player (Foobar2000).
 
1. Check out all available plugins in DSP Manager section (check my Screenshot ).
    If you find a plugin containing  "VST" word, activate it. If not, install one.
 
2. This is my favorite : George Yohng's VST Wrapper  . Very easy to install and use. All the needed tutorials included..
 
3. After you had activated VST manager, launch it, point out Electri-Q folder location, launch Electri-Q Editor. It should work now...
 

Spoiler: Edit%3A%20Added

George Yohng's VST Wrapper -> not a single crash/bug spoted , using Electri-Q ...
Works perfect for me, considering I still use older Foobar 0.9.5 version.
It's just the wonderful skin I love, not working on newer builds...

 
 
 
 

Thanks..that worked. Unfortunately Electri-Q kept crashing if i try to equalize when the song is playing. It is fine if i save the presets and then load the song. I am still trying to figure out how to save multiple presets in Electri-Q. But, this is a good start.

 

[Argyris]

Just as a general note to those using this method. The human ear has a natural bump in the 2-5 kHz region, and likely your headphones have one here, too. It might be too loud, but you shouldn't eliminate it entirely as this will throw off the balance. I previously made this mistake and wondered why everything sounded wrong. My current curves (which I mentioned in my previous post) incorporate this bump and I'm very happy with the results.
 
EDIT: Totally misread the post above so I've converted the following into general advice.
 
If you're lucky enough to find version 0.8.0.1 of the new VST 2.4 wrapper plugin (good luck--I thanked my lucky stars I kept a copy of it because I couldn't find a link to an older version), it's a lot more stable with Electri-Q than the current 0.9.x version, which seems prone to immediate crash. I still get the occasional crash when scrobbling to a specific part of a song, but for general playback I'm able to edit while the song is playing.