[brosselle]

Do people generally have all EQ and/or tone control settings flat when listening to headphones?

Brett

 

[jodokast]

egad! Do you have to declare war now?

I know you're not saying whether or not we should use the equalize, but here you'll find both sides with one claiming the benefits of the equalizer while hte 'pure audophiles' condemnning it to hell in a very very violent manner. Okay, maybe I"m exaggerating a bit. ;0)


I personally dont' use it - but that's just cause I'm too lazy to keep changing the settings from song to song. I say. Listen to a few opinions.

And then listen to the music you like with and without the equalizer and then decide for yourself which one you like.

 

[brosselle]

Quote:

Originally posted by jodokast egad! Do you have to declare war now?

Oops! Didn't want to start a flame war. Guess I should search the archives.

Sounds like this has been discussed before.

Brett

 

[dhwilkin]

Hehe, "discussed" is a nice way to put it.

My guess is the majority here don't use EQ at all, including me, though some do. The biggest proponent being Joe Bloggs, I believe.

 

[gloco]

Hehe, i use the tone controls on the Receiver when listening to a certain can. I definitely use the presets on my MD walkman. When using a headphone amp though, everything sounds perfect.

George

 

[cajunchrist]

The trouble with common bass/treble knobs is they rarely boost/cut the signal at the point that's causing the trouble. A 1/3rd octave eq is really the only way to sculpt a signal, but who can afford a good one?

 

[Wes]

cajunchrist is exactly right. The treble and bass controls built into most audio units are very blunt instruments for repairing what are often very specific shortcomings in frequency response. So, better not to use them, most conclude. You'd be very lucky if they were really beneficial.

Then, too, a lot of us are rather phobic about putting anything in the path of the signal that doesn't strictly have to be there out of fear that there will be some kind of degradation. Of course, this is not necessarily a rational attitude because we never know how many things have been put into the signal upstream of the copies we buy or download. Chances are that a great many of the feared interpositions and associated degradations are already part of the package. So, it might make sense to try to fix things with an equalizer--a very superior one, if you can find such a thing.

As usual, personal preferences rule in the end. Ideally, they will be based on as much experiment and experience as possible.

No. I don't use an equalizer (but I might if I had a good one; that is, I have no objection in principle to them). Long-winded answer, eh, brosselle?

 

[aeberbach]

If you have to listen through speakers or cans that you know have peaks or troughs in the frequency response there is nothing wrong with attenuating frequencies with a quality tone control or EQ... but you're way better off choosing your speakers or cans more carefully in the first place

 

[neworder]

When I first bought my Corda headphone amp and Sony 3000 headphones I was not very impreseed with the sound (mostly the bass). I put an EQ inline and was able to adjust it so it gave me the sound I wanted and now I don't listen without the EQ.

You are going to get the best sound with a digital EQ but they are very expensive. What i did was buy a Rio Car (empeg) which has a digital EQ so you can get very good results. The Rio Car will play mp3s and raw wav files if you want to keep your source "pure". The Rio Car produces no noise and is very clean.

Sonic Blue is blowing them out right now for very good prices.
http://store.sonicblue.com/dr/v2/ec_...P=0&CACHE_ID=0

 

[jona]

While I would agree in principle that an EQ may get in the way of your source signal, and may not be required with a better set of cans, there is another reason to use EQ. Not all recorded material is "audiophile quality". Using an EQ may be considered as a "poor man's on-the-fly remaster" of older inadequate recordings. EQ does NOT fix all problems with inadequate source material, or inadequate cans for that matter. But it may help. I have altered the EQ on a variety of source materials using my Mac for producing CD's for use in my car, and I see no reason why anyone should criticize a similar practice for listening to cans.

If it sounds good, do it!

Jon

 

[bootman]

The problem with EQ is that they are the most abused and misunderstood piece of audio gear in the history of all audio gear!

I have a (IMHO) fairly hi-end headphone amp that has EQ controls! (ok its only 3 of them and not 200 but you get the idea)
My point being, that this amp was designed by an audiophile for his own (now Headroom's) company, so the idea that all audiophiles would balk at the idea of EQs is not entirely true.
Now personally I have played with them (they are defeatable) but I always seem to go back to a non EQ sound for any serious listening.

 

[brosselle]

I had always heard that the purpose of an EQ qas so that you could adjust for room variations, and get the sound set flat, hence the pink noise generators and microphone setup.

Based on this, I had assumed that since headphones don't have to compensate for room variations, that they should be flat already, and not need any equilation.

Sounded good on paper anyway

 

[Wes]

brosselle,

I can understand why you thought that, but there is a "room" in every headphone where its driver is placed and also a "speaker cabinet." It's just that these are reduced in scale to become, in the first case, the chamber between the inside grill of the headphone (omitting buds and canalphones) and the part of your head enclosed by the cup. The "cabinet" is the chamber inside the cup behind the driver. It may be vented to the rear in an open circumaural design or vented to the sides in a supraural one. Of course, it may also be closed.

Plenty of room for deviations from flatness there already, but the room also has a big (comparatively) piece of "furniture" in it: the ear with all the peculiarities of individual pinnae and ear canals.

Chances are the average, good quality headphone is a little flatter in response than a comparable speaker because there is almost always only one driver without a crossover and because that driver is easy to control because of low mass, high structural integrity derived from its small size (no cone break-up effects, that is), and the much smaller mass of air to be moved to make the music.

 

[cajunchrist]

Quote:

I had assumed that since headphones don't have to compensate for room variations, that they should be flat already,

Not even the Etymotics have a completely flat response curve, though their boost in treble is deliberate. All headphones introduce colorations to sound, but since adding components into the signal chain for headphone listening is more noticeable because of the extremely close monitoring, headphone enthusiasts tend not to use them. Top quality headphones are usually sufficiently balanced in sound not to need them, and the slight colorations they do add tend to be pleasing for certain types of music: the live, forward sound of Grados for rock, the smooth, laidback sound of Sennheiser for jazz/classical, etc.

It's best to be sure your components are the appropriate ones for your application, then when all else fails, add EQ to get your sound right. With my Sennheiser 495's, they sound o.k. from the headphone out of my Sony D-25s, but in all other applications they sound dark and veiled. A little boost in the treble is necessary to sharpen up their sound to make the music come forward sufficiently for my taste. On the other side, my Grado 225's, even when using the dullest sounding interconnect I own between my pcdp and CMOY amp, sound a bit too bright. A little shave off the top of the treble makes them more pleasant to listen to for long periods.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Wow, I must check into newbie threads more often from now on!

I think you can see that my new sig is for recruiting more team members

Few headphones, even high-end ones, have a flat frequency response. Here's the graphs of some high-end phones from Sennheiser, Grado and AKG:

Senn HD600s--a perennial favourite in Head-Fi. The hole in the upper frequencies (right side) is there for a reason, as I will explain below, although it's arguably overdone--but look at the high-bass hump. It makes the music 'warm' if you're being charitable and 'coloured' if you're being critical, depending on your mood!

RS-1s--Grado's top of the line. The treble response looks like a stock exchange on a particularly erratic day, but people don't seem to mind--but many people *do* complain that Grados simply have too much treble. The bass rolls off early and fast.

K501s--Team AKG swear by their neutral, accurate presentation, and by the looks of it, the K501 is indeed a quite accurate phone, especially in the midrange. But the bass rolloff... well, I won't go into that here

It might initially be comforting to know that a flat frequency response is not necessarily be the best FR for headphones to have:

[size=xx-small]Headphones that have built-in equalization to sound "flat" do not necessarily measure flat. Figure 1 shows how the ears hear a flat frequency sweep projected from a loudspeaker positioned slightly left of center. The hills and valleys in the two curves are due to the head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) that shape sounds interacting with the listener's head and the pinna of the ears. The brain processes the amplitude and phase-shifts from the HRTFs to determine the nature and location of the sound. Diffused-field equalized headphones alter the frequency response of headphones to resemble a curve similar to those in figure 1, thereby restoring some of the HRTF contouring that is normally missing with headphones. Thus, diffused-field equalized headphones are supposed to sound natural and flat.[/size]

But when it turns out that a frequency response looking like *that* is theoretically the ideal and there's nothing in the world of headphones that looks anything like that, well, you get scared

This is when EQ comes to the rescue.

So you have an EQ? Need help configuring it to make your equipment sound at its best? Tell us about your equipment! Or send me a private message.

HEY! That's the Sony V-600 you have in the headphone inventory? I'm afraid you have to buy another set of headphones first before I can talk to you about EQ configuration! These headphones have the worst sonic reputation in Head-Fi and if I talk to you about EQ'ing them to make *them* sound at the best everyone will come out to beat me with a stick

Go get a Sony V6. Not the V-600!