Thanks for the reply, I downloaded the EQ you recommened. Could you tell me what you have everything set to? I don't have any experience with EQ, and so far all I've manged to do is make the music sound worse.
Had a tough time grasping this so I'll pass on what I've learned over the years about EQ'ing.
INTERFACE
Gain Value: The amount you're trying to boost (shown in decibels)
Quality: Bandwidth of a particular signal. This is easier to understand if you're looking at the graph. Lower Q value = wider bandwidth, you can mess around by changing this number to see how it changes the sound.
Filter: I mainly use peak filter and low/high shelf filter. and in most cases you will too. You can google the different types of filters and what they do.
I only EQ based on the 3 instances below,
- Sibilance
- Recessed mids (bass can's kryptonite)
- Dat bass doe
Disclaimer: Most of the time you're better off finding headphones that fit the sound signature you want rather than trying to over-EQ a pair you don't like (Unless you're EQ'ing for skull shattering bass, which has its own hardware requirements).
Before you go about EQ'ing, you should ask yourself what about the music you want to change. Moreover, it also depends on the
specific track as well, for example:
- if I am trying to boost sub-bass for electronic / hiphop, I try to raise only sub bass so the signal sounds clean. (20 hz, 40 hz, 80 hz are the frequencies I experiment with when EQ'ing for bass thump)
- If I feel that the sound needs a little warmth and smoothness I'll boost around 100 hz - 200 hz.
- If I want to hear better male vocals, in your face guitar rifts, I'll boost around 4 khz.
- If I am hearing sibilance, I'll cut anywhere between 6 khz - 10 khz.
Make sure you boost 1db at a time so you don't potentially damage your headphones.
Additionally, looking at the frequency graph from the headphone's manufacturer also helps you to zero in on the irregularity you're hearing.
Pre-amp (located on top left of the app) will mitigate clipping so make sure to set this below 0 by a factor of the highest signal boost (
if you boosted 3 db at 40 hz, you would have to set the pre-amp to -3). Under the Effects button, you can click on that little graph picture to show you the graphical representation of the EQ. It helps correctly setting the pre-amp (make sure the frequency graph is on or below the y-axis at 0.)
http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm
Refer to the link above and you can start experimenting. EQ'ing on this particular thread is a little bit different as you will be feeding more power via and chaining different gear to achieve the kind of bass we like around here (not to mention, to EQ for extreme bass, you will need a beefy amp with a lot of headroom to sound good without clipping).
Few tips:
- Look into subtractive equalizing (cut, rather than boosting) to clean up the sound. This is the best method if you want to preserve the headphone's signature with lots of info on how if you google.
- You can right click on the filter button to turn that signal off, sometimes helps if you have different presets for different tracks for the same headphone.
- Remember that you can only do so much, some headphones just aren't made for some tracks/genres. Make sure your source is good, and not all tracks are made equal.
![20170909_115844[1].jpg](https://cdn.head-fi.org/a/9998652.jpg "20170909_115844[1].jpg")
