[protonchain]

So I installed this equalizer (Equalizer APO) that is system-wide. I increased the bass and treble and changed around the mids in this equalizer to get some sounds more well-expressed. I noticed that once the bass hits in anything, the entire sound attenuates (lowers in volume) as if there's some physical limit it's reached and it's trying to prevent it from being loud.

I added a pre-amp to sort of mitigate this problem and just have the expressed bass but I'd much rather it break past that ceiling/limit and play the audio naturally.

This is all on a windows 10 machine at home. I removed any sort of loudness equalization setting or whatever.

I have a mac desktop at work where I use soundflower and AULabs with my own custom equalizer and low-shelf filter and it works amazingly well there. There is no attenuation. Same with my work macbook pro.

I have uninstalled the RealTek HD audio driver and had it revert back to the microsoft one, and I even bought a soundcard for it to use and I get the same issue.

This is my motherboard in my windows machine: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131706

This is the soundcard I purchased: https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-XONAR-H...&qid=1544412267&sr=8-1&keywords=asus+xonar+DG

Are these just subpar sound processing units compared to the macbook and trash can mac I have at work? Do I need to get some sort of USB DAC and Amp for my windows machine to enjoy good sound?

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Are these just subpar sound processing units compared to the macbook and trash can mac I have at work? Do I need to get some sort of USB DAC and Amp for my windows machine to enjoy good sound?

Sounds like some kind of software issue. Not getting it on my laptop though but it's probable that EQ APO is conflicting with the Realtek and the soundcard drivers. Not sure why it still conflicts with Windows audio drivers, not getting that issue on my laptop.

Maybe a USB DAC will help (note it will render the soundcard useless as it will be bypassed, so you'd have to return that ASAP) but no guarantees. Does this problem only happen when EQ APO is on? If not then the Loudness EQ/Dynamic Compression DSP might be enabled on the Windows audio settings somewhere. Otherwise open up the EQ APO interface and double check everything to make sure it's not running any similar features.

 

[MindsMirror]

I added a pre-amp to sort of mitigate this problem and just have the expressed bass but I'd much rather it break past that ceiling/limit and play the audio naturally.

That's the solution. Music is typically mastered at the limit already, there is no room to go any louder without introducing clipping distortion or compression. To increase the bass without distortion, you have to lower the preamp equally. If you want to play the music "naturally," lower the preamp, or don't use any EQ, those are the only options.

 

[GREQ]

Or 3rd solution, negatively EQ the other parts of the sound you don't want emphasized.