I have a set of Bose Soundsport headphones I use while running and I am willing to spend the extra time needed to set an EQ to make them sound really good.
EQ doesn't exactly work like make up though, where you can take somebody totally ugly, do contouring, and voila - somebody with the total opposite of clear skin looks like they have perfect skin, at least for pictures (make up like that looks really, really, really weird in person - kind of like what medieval Japanese make up looks like), and along with hairstyling, you can reshape a not cute, not round, shapeless face into a hot face with concave cheeks.
Personally you might as well spend the extra time and maybe less money on something else, especially if you've already tried Neutron Music Player which has variable center frequency, gain,
plus curve type and Q factor.
However, what I've noticed is the iPhone (in my case the 6s) just outright sucks for audio processing--specifically, the applications available that play mp3s on the phone. I am completely unable to find any EQ app (paid or unpaid) that can allow me to increase some of the bands (mostly bass and treble) without clipping and distorting the signal. Even adding +3dB at 64 Hz. causes distortion on some songs. At first I thought the headphones just weren't as good as I thought until I tried using them on my computer. With Windows Media Player I am able to add more than +10dB @ 64 Hz. without causing distortion and clipping the signal.
So, the question is why? Computers and phones dont have actual preamplifiers like a mixer or graphic equalizer used for professional audio would, it's all software. As such, why does no one have a solid app in the app store that can amplify different bands appropriately without clipping the signal and sounding like complete crap? Even apps that claim to be "studio grade" and intended for "processional use" (yea, like pros would use a phone for processing audio....) still completely suck, even compared to WMP which is an outdated, consumer level playback program.
That's not primarily a function of the iPhone or whatever other source you happen to be using. The first thing that might be affecting that are everything downstream from the source, particularly the amplifier and the speaker/headphone, which could both be at their limits already. Sure, Bose would use a high efficiency driver, but that's to use a low power consumption, low output amplifier that doesn't have gigantic capacitors so as not to clip the signal while still having good damping factor. That or there really is a lot of distortion on the drivers or they're at their excursion limit.
Given that Bose is a DSP-dependent brand what I'd guess is it's a mix of both,
plus the possibility that its BT-DAC-amplifier circuit already applies its own EQ profile to make those headphones sound good (rather than designing a really good driver to begin with). You're basically EQ-ing a driver that already has a boost on that frequency, and you're clipping the signal. Add crappy Loudness War recording "standards," and you're even closer to clipping. That's like ordering a pizza from a chain that by default piles on too much toppings, then you order more toppings, and you end up with a soggy pizza with way too toasted meat at the top layer.
That wont achieve what I want. Cutting and boosting are two completely different things that produce different sound. Setting the EQ to - 10dB across the board and turning the volume up to compensate sounds completely different than setting the EQ to 0 dB and turning the volume down. Setting all the positions to a negative on the EQ does not equally reduce the volume of the whole frequency range, it creates peaks and valleys to the adjusted frequency. Try it in Windows Media Player on your computer.
Cutting and boosting are two different things, you're just not focusing on the critical difference that he's tallking about. Boosting takes you closer to clipping, even on the most powerful amplifier and the best driver with longest excursion, so instead of boosting the frequency you want to bring out, you're supposed to trim the frequencies around it. For one, do you even have a baseline for what you're doing? You need to be looking at a response graph to really even know what you're doing with EQ, mostly because most people using EQ use it to flatten the response. And in your case if you can't hear 60hz-ish that well, what if the problem isn't simply that it starts trailing off around that point, but that it has a massive spike above that (or below)?
This is like modifying a recipe - you don't simply add more of one thing, you cut the other stuff if they're overwhelming. Same reason why you don't add a lot of salt especially if you're already using something with a good deal of sodium, like soy sauce, taste as you go, then tweak the salt and pepper near the end.
