How to equalize your headphones: A Tutorial

[pprj]

Very nice discussion. Thanks. Cull

 

[Mama70]

Would have liked to share my convolver wav-file so other's could comment but seems I don't have have permission the post attachments.
Too bad.

 

[iano]

A few notes for Mac Users. Although I am in early stages of using this combination, my experience may help if you are looking for a Mac-only approach.
 
If I have understood the process correctly we need
 
1) pink noise generator
2) sine wave generator with easy way to slowly move the sine wave up and down the frequency scale looking for unnatural loudness peaks
3) parametric equalizer with several points of control that can be moved freely to the exact points the sine wave testing identifies as the peaks that need to be 'equalized'
 
I believe I have all these in each of the following Mac audio/DAW type programs on mac:   Audacity (Free), Reaper (Small cost, excellent program), Twisted Wave (Free). My personal favorite is the last one (it has a wonderful batch processing mode), although I like all three and have used them all for different purposes.
 
Twisted Wave has a standard tone generator which meets the need of the first two items, and it can access a very wide range of effects such as AU (audio units), components, some VSTs etc.I personally have been using the (free) Melda Production parametric EQ effects (various sorts).
 
I have a lot of headphones, dynamic, electrostatic, and orthodymanics.
 
I started with a modified Fostex T50RP...for no other reason than that it was close to hand and my current favorite phone.
 
Initial result for my phones (and ears). Interestingly I can hear the differences between the effect and the bypassed version.  The width of the correction is as important as the depth and position of the center of the correction from my brief experience. I had initially allowed the width of the correction to be too wide, so that the 'corrected' version sounds much duller. Some slight dulling of some aspects of the sound is to be expected (its what we are trying to do with the eq after all!) but I do notice that after the correction that some sounds that would otherwise be piercing and uncomfortable is now tamed. I clearly need to do more listening, and probably spend more time really tuning this EQ set up for these phones, but its a start, and its all on a Mac....
.

 

[sniperwill0]

Can you please tell me how to open Electri-Q? I installed it but can't find the program. It just gives me the manual and uninstall program. Thanks

 

[Joe Bloggs]

It's a VST plugin.You open it from an audio player that supports VST, like Winamp, or foobar with George Yohng's VST wrapper added.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Double post

 

[sniperwill0]

Great thanks.

 

[Alec246]

Electri-Q Crashes everytime I try to use it with Foobar! I can't use it for more than 2 minutes!! It's making me crazy, what should I do?
 

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Use George Yohng's VST wrapper
http://yohng.com/software/foobarvst.html
 
instead of foobar's VST component to load Electri-Q.

 

[Alec246]

Thank you! Will try that.
 
Another thing, since I can't afford the 99 dollars Electri-Q Full version, I'm using the freeware, which doesn't allow me to use Linear Phasing EQ, so I can't use S-Plane Type II either. What should I use with Electri0Q freeware instead? thank you!
 
I'm trying to equalize my new Corsair Vengeance 1300 Gaming Headphone. I know you guys are going to say bad things about it, but that's the best Headphone I could find with a Microphone, something that I needed real bad, and it seems better than my actual Sony MDR-XD400, so I'll be trying to EQ it the best I can
 

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Just use digital mode and the basic peak, low shelf, high shelf filters
 
Special Butterworth low shelf / high shelf 24/48dB / octave filters for if you need a steeper low shelf or high shelf than the basic low/high shelf filters can provide without "ringing".
 
Sounds just great to me.  Digital mode is minimum phase which should sound better than linear phase anyway for correcting headphone response.  No pre-ringing.

 

[Alec246]

Thank you for the info!
 
I have spent my entire day yesterday reading this entire thread, and there are still lots of questions unanswered for me! It takes so much to correct these phones by ear alone. wow! Sometimes it's such a small difference between frequencies that you don't know if it's your ear adapting to the higher pitch or really a volume chance. There's a clear one at 4.8 I think, after that just small ones, at least from what I could perceive.
 
Should I also try to fill in when the volume goes down on certain frequencies with the EQ, or just leave it there only correcting the peaks? I'm such a noob to EQ I'm using it for the first time actually.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

I think it is best to just correct the peaks and leave the frequency response of the headphones mostly unchanged, especially below 1kHz, to start off.
 

 

[Alec246]

I give up. I don't have good ears for equalization. I need some kind of reference, just listening to Pink Noise while adjusting seems to make me cut important frequencies responses, not just the peaks. I don't want to ruin my music with an EQ that kills the dynamics of the instruments. I can hear the difference with SineGen though, the problem is adapting that to Electri-Q listening to PinkNoise. I couldn't find the Sweep Sine mp3 since the link is no longer available, maybe that owuld make things easier?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

I have two methods for EQing using Sinegen directly.
 
The first is the curve plotting method
http://www.head-fi.org/t/413900/how-to-equalize-your-headphones-a-tutorial/750#post_8208522
 
The second is using Virtual Audio Cable and VSTHost to directly EQ the sounds coming out of Sinegen
http://www.head-fi.org/t/615417/how-to-equalize-your-headphones-advanced-tutorial-in-progress
(for now ignore the bit about using two EQs in series and just get VAC and VSTHost working)