Some dudes Loki mini plus eq for his HD 6xx's
Aug 25, 2021 at 5:04 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 21

Rehcsif

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In short, this:
0825210219_HDR.jpg

But let me explain why so I can justify my previous four hours of madness and hopefully this can be used as something of a guide to other loki mini plus owners. First let me explain my goal, increase the bass some on my HD 6xx's while maintaining the rest of its original tone. Here is approximately what I ended up with.
MD-30891_20161107221100_1ab63d3b2ae45b6e (2).jpg.png

First off I want to say that I obtained the frequency response from drop's website. Secondly this was the initial chart that I assembled from my planned changes, I no longer have the original chart but I did recreate the process that I used to set the eq.

The quirks of the loki mini plus:
The loki mini plus is a physical eq device. All of its adjustments have been shown to be symmetrical meaning that for any increase in a setting, turning equivalently to said negative setting should have the a similar but opposite effect. The four sections that it is capable of eqing also have somewhat broad regions of effect leading to most settings having notable areas of overlap. Thus if you want a very specific effect then you may need to make counter adjustments with the other settings. Some digging let me find a rough guide to the effects of the control knobs here https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...t-loki-mini-eq-review-and-measurements.11195/

The first planned adjustment:
bass tweak.jpg

Since the primary goal was to increase the bass the first tweak aimed to increase the 20-30hz range, which would be accomplished by turning the bass knob just past the 3 o'clock position. This unfortunately had the side-effect of over emphasizing the 60-300hz range so a tweak down was needed next

The second planned adjustment:
midbass tweak.jpg

The counter adjustment would be achieved by turning the mid-bass knob to approximately the 8 o'clock position. This should neatly level out the 60-300hz range but unfortunately lead to a dip at the 300-2khz range that now needs to be corrected.

The third planned adjustment:
midrange tweak.jpg

This adjustment would be achieved by turning the midrange knob approximately to the 4 o'clock position. This serves the purpose of returning the 300-1khz to their previous levels but produces a notable increase in treble.

The final planned adjustment:
treble tweak.jpg

By turning the the treble knob to the approximate 9 o'clock position it should return the treble to their normal levels, resulting in a very similar sound signature with an extended bass.

The final tuning. A.K.A. why I love/hate that the pass-through switch is on the front:
After the initial adjustments the last thing that needed to be done was to fine tune the settings. What proceeded was two hours of a-b testing the eq against no eq. Genres included jazz, dubstep, rock, chip tune, acoustic and a few others. Some songs took to the eq a bit too easily and didn't show much change unless something was really off. I want to again state that my goal was to create an eq that ONLY noticeably extended the bass. The one oddball song that helped me dial in the eq was Fortree City from the original Pokemon Runy/Sapphire soundtrack. For some reason each time the eq was even slightly off it would cause the song to sound strange compared to the non-eq'd version which sounded delightfully natural. It kept shifting between sounding too tinny to too compressed in comparison to the non-eq'd version. After enough tuning the song was nearly indistinguishable to me between the eq'd and non eq'd version so I went back to some other songs to compare. I checked back on songs that I knew didn't extend down into bass region and I couldn't notice a change between their eq'd and non-eq'd versions. So I had atleast, to my ears, maintained the sound signature of the HD 6xx's from the mid bass through the treble now I just needed to check the bass. I started playing through some dubstep and some bassier jazz and it looks like I had also achieved my goal of boosting the bass. The Inside Man (Soopasoul Remix) by Funky Destination is a song that definitely benefits from the eq. While still a good song on the stock HD 6xx, the eq raised the bass enough to give it a warm welcoming character that it was missing on stock. This eq also helped some of the bassier electronic music I listen to regain the impact that they were sorely missing on the stock HD 6xx's.

Overall I'm very happy that I created the eq that I did. I somehow managed to extend the bass while leaving the rest of the sound signature for these headphones largely untouched. I also wish I fully realized how the loki mini plus worked ahead of time but it's hard to find guides for the thing.
 
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Aug 25, 2021 at 5:35 PM Post #2 of 21
Is that a four band tone control?
 
Aug 25, 2021 at 7:33 PM Post #4 of 21
Is it designed for portable use? Battery operated?
 
Aug 25, 2021 at 7:38 PM Post #6 of 21
Ow. That isn't terribly useful then. There are a lot of graphic and parametric equalizers that would be a lot more flexible for use in the home. Four bands isn't that much better than just treble and bass controls. It would be nice if it was small and portable. I guess it matches the other components nicely, but it would have been better to just put all of it in one small box instead of three.
 
Aug 25, 2021 at 9:18 PM Post #7 of 21
Ow. That isn't terribly useful then. There are a lot of graphic and parametric equalizers that would be a lot more flexible for use in the home. Four bands isn't that much better than just treble and bass controls. It would be nice if it was small and portable. I guess it matches the other components nicely, but it would have been better to just put all of it in one small box instead of three.
Although it's not as useful as a single box dac/amp/ep unit it lets me have a lot of flexibility. The whole thing has been piece-mealed together and the whole chain is going to be slowly upgraded as I can afford to. There may be better options out there but in terms of flexibility, affordability, and sound quality this was one of the best options for me. It was also a ton of fun to figure out how to use it to tune my headphones exactly how I wanted them.
 
Aug 25, 2021 at 9:20 PM Post #8 of 21
There is a thing called miniDSP that would be a very good upgrade from that tone control.
 
Aug 26, 2021 at 1:31 AM Post #10 of 21
You mentioned that you might like to upgrade in the future. That is the thing to look into. It is a full featured parametric equalizer with a variety of other sound processing features... a lot more than just tone controls.
 
Aug 26, 2021 at 2:10 AM Post #11 of 21
You mentioned that you might like to upgrade in the future. That is the thing to look into. It is a full featured parametric equalizer with a variety of other sound processing features... a lot more than just tone controls.
I should clarify my thoughts. The quality of the the sound will be established by the final dac in your audio chain. For example, if you're using a pair of Bluetooth headphones then the quality of the audio the produce will be established initially by the dac in the headphones. The minidsp tone control units have two functions. The first function is that of a dac, if you aren't looking for a high preforming dac then you can just get a minidsp and be done with it. Its second function is as a adc, a device that converts an analog signal into a digital signal that its dac can process. If you plan on getting a premium or high preforming dac then you should not get a minidsp as it will reconvert the audio signal and you will lose the most of the benefits of a high preforming dac. On top of this, the act of it converting an analogue signal to a digital signal then back to an analogue signal introduces a fair amount of unnecessary noise. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...urements-and-minidsp-2x4-hd-dsp-and-dac.2674/

On the other hand, the loki mini plus and it's bigger brother the lokius are known for their extremely transparent measurements. What helps is that they are simply modulating an analogue signal and thus avoid the extra noise of preforming a double conversion like the minidsp. Since they only deal with the analogue signal this means that the sound quality from your prefered dac is largely maintained. I was also able to use the seemingly minimal controls to perfect the sound that I was looking for. Plus, both the loki mini plus and the lokius are capable of being fully bypassed via a switch meaning that you can easily and fully take them out of your audio chain. This is something the minidsp can't do as for audio to pass through it it always needs to reconvert the signal, even if it isn't using an eq profile. That means that the only way to remove it from your system and maintain the sound quality of your preferred dac would be to unplug it and remove it from the system entirely.

If you are comfortable using a minidsp or notably similar product as your dac then this is not an issue. But you should not use this with any other dac as either:
*The mini dsp will be a better dac then the other dac in the chain and the other will act as a bottleneck, negatively effecting the audio in the chain. In this case you should just use the mini dsp as your dac. Or
*The other dac in the chain will be negatively effected due to a bottleneck caused by the minidsp. In this case the only way to improve audio quality is to get rid of the mini dsp as it is acting as an inferior dac.

Since I plan on upgrading each part of my chain over time, dac included, the minidsp would quickly cause the second scenario. I would also like to reiterate that I cannot eq most of my digital sources thus, until I find a more appropriate pair of headphones, a chain side eq device that didn't fundamentally alter the qualities of the audio signal was needed. What I really needed were different headphones but thanks to my loki mini plus that isn't a problem any more. And since the loki mini plus has virtually no effect on the audio signal outside of its eq, I don't have to worry that it is negatively effecting the performance of other equipment in my chain. In all honesty the only reason that I could have for getting rid of this thing is if I were to run a fully balanced rig, and that would only be because it doesn't support that.
 
Aug 26, 2021 at 2:20 AM Post #12 of 21
DACs are audibly transparent. You should look for a DAC that has the features you want, because even an iPhone dongle has perfect sound for human ears. DACs are designed to present a clean signal with balanced response. Headphones are the variable that ranges the furthest. You want to EQ to correct for deviations from the target curve in the cans. Every set of headphones can be different. If you want to upgrade electronics, upgrade for added features. If you want to upgrade for sound, upgrade your headphones. If you want a specific response correction for headphones that aren't perfect or coloration to suit your particular tastes, you use tone controls or an equalizer. Tone controls are a crude kind of brute force way of doing it. A full featured equalizer can fine tune the whole response curve from end to end and cure narrow spikes and dips as well. The miniDSP is capable of precisely calibrating to any target curve you want. They also have other features for optimizing the sound. An equalizer can make the biggest difference to sound quality in a system, aside from the transducers themselves. I doubt you'll find any difference in sound quality at all churning through different DACs or amps.
 
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Aug 26, 2021 at 3:05 AM Post #13 of 21
Ah, it appears that we are of vastly different mindsets in regards to this topic. Allow me to clarify a few final things.

Some reiterations:
*I did mention previously I was planning on upgrading to a different pair of headphones eventually that more closely matched the sound I was aiming for.
*As stated earlier I am mostly using the loki mini plus as a 'fix' for my issues with my current headphones and that I did indeed achieve my goal of increase the bass between 20-50hz and leave the rest of the frequency response largely unchanged.

The rest just comes down to my personal audio needs and preferences:
*I didn't exactly need precise controls to fix the issue that I was having
*I personally don't change eq during different use cases. Thus outside of this one particular use case I don't have a need for any more of a precise eq'ing solution either at this moment or once I find a more appropriate headphone
*Lastly, I just enjoy playing with knobs more than changing digital values

Again, thank you for the recommendation. For many people it may be a wonderful solution but the minidsp does not fit my particular use case. Hopefully this thread can be useful to those trying to decide which they would prefer to use.

I'm going to repost the links to measurements in one spot below so that they are easier to find, though these links can also be found in my previous posts.

HD-6XX:
https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-sennheiser-hd6xx

Loki Mini Plus:
https://www.schiit.com/products/lok...xeaetLPmkAXE-85PbymLMLawphh1VBpxoCTJsQAvD_BwE
https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...t-loki-mini-eq-review-and-measurements.11195/

Minidsp:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...urements-and-minidsp-2x4-hd-dsp-and-dac.2674/
 
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Aug 26, 2021 at 3:10 AM Post #14 of 21
If you upgrade to headphones that match your target curve, you don't need equalization at all. You can ditch the tone controls and make your system simpler. That was my goal. I got headphones that sound perfect plugged straight into my Mac devices. No need for a DAC, amp or equalization. I just plug into my iMac, iPad or iPhone and it sounds perfect everywhere. That is the best of all because everywhere I go I have something I can plug into. Simpler is better than a lot of separate components when it comes to headphone rigs. Ideally a convenient compact portable rig is all you need at home too. That is an achievable goal if you get the right cans. However, with a good equalizer, you can make even midrange headphones sound very, very close to high end ones. If you don't mind separate components and you aren't using it for portable, that might be a more inexpensive way to reach the goal, particularly if you already have money invested in a DAC and amp that work for you.
 
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Nov 5, 2021 at 6:08 PM Post #15 of 21
Ah, it appears that we are of vastly different mindsets in regards to this topic. Allow me to clarify a few final things.

Some reiterations:
*I did mention previously I was planning on upgrading to a different pair of headphones eventually that more closely matched the sound I was aiming for.
*As stated earlier I am mostly using the loki mini plus as a 'fix' for my issues with my current headphones and that I did indeed achieve my goal of increase the bass between 20-50hz and leave the rest of the frequency response largely unchanged.

The rest just comes down to my personal audio needs and preferences:
*I didn't exactly need precise controls to fix the issue that I was having
*I personally don't change eq during different use cases. Thus outside of this one particular use case I don't have a need for any more of a precise eq'ing solution either at this moment or once I find a more appropriate headphone
*Lastly, I just enjoy playing with knobs more than changing digital values

Again, thank you for the recommendation. For many people it may be a wonderful solution but the minidsp does not fit my particular use case. Hopefully this thread can be useful to those trying to decide which they would prefer to use.

I'm going to repost the links to measurements in one spot below so that they are easier to find, though these links can also be found in my previous posts.

HD-6XX:
https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-sennheiser-hd6xx

Loki Mini Plus:
https://www.schiit.com/products/lok...xeaetLPmkAXE-85PbymLMLawphh1VBpxoCTJsQAvD_BwE
https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...t-loki-mini-eq-review-and-measurements.11195/

Minidsp:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...urements-and-minidsp-2x4-hd-dsp-and-dac.2674/
Thanks for sharing your settings. When I use the Loki Mini + with the 6XX (not that often, I like its tuning as it is), these are my settings (not that different from yours):
1636150120930.png
 

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