Creating EQ for Google Home Max?

[powerwolve]

I am a total noob when it comes to the behind-the-scenes for creating EQ settings for speakers, I just know that they can be applied to make up for "weaknesses" in speakers and greatly appreciate folks that make them, of which I apply to my own speakers to greatly enhance the listening experience. I have been searching high and low for an EQ that I can apply to my Google Home Max speaker (beyond the extremely simplified "EQ" that can be applied in the Google Home settings, of just "bass" and "treble") and in searching spinorama for some settings, it does not seem this particular device is available as far as EQ settings, however one of its sister products, the Nest, is:

Measurements for speaker Google Nest Audio

www.spinorama.org

Therefore, I am wondering what it would take to be able to product similar results and EQ recommendations for the Google Home Max specifically. My plan is to effectively bypass the simplified Google Home EQ and instead of streaming over wifi directly to the speakers, use a more traditional approach of inputting a signal via the 3.5mm stereo jack in the back to be able to better control the audio input, of which I would apply my own EQ to better tune the speaker. I have tested this with a simple EQ applied via my smartphone output, and it does in fact work as I am intending.

In the effort to cut down on work, at least at the speaker measurement stage, I am wondering what the possibility of using some existing measurements such as the ones taken from the rtings.com website may be able to be used here:

Google Home Max Review

The Google Home Max is a small speaker that has built-in Google Assistant capabilities. It's voice-activated, and it can pick up your voice even if you aren't ve...

www.rtings.com

This site hosts multiple types of frequency responses for the speakers they test, albeit in a graphical only format most likely rather than being able to download the data into some sort of software tool, but still hoping maybe this can be used to simplify this process, even if it's just "close enough" and not super precise due to some guessing from the plots.

Any help is greatly appreciated here. My goal at the end here is to product an EQ such as the ones hosted on spinorama, "This EQ optimise the Harman score and is a good start for far field listening like in your living room." Thank you!

 

[GGroch]

Welcome.

Amir measures both loudspeakers and headphones, but he offers EQ adjustment suggestions only for the latter. The reason for the difference is that with loudspeakers the room they are in, and their exact placement in it, greatly effects frequency response. Headphones fire into ears, and for the most part that does not impact curves a lot. Rather than EQing for the speaker, you are best off looking into room measurement apps (like the one that comes with the Wiim streaming devices). There are also cheap or free apps for Android that will measure your frequency response at your listening position. Once you have those measurements, you can proceed to corrections with a good idea of where to start.

 

[kemmler3D]

+1 to this.

The "real" way to do EQ correction involves getting a calibrated mic, the UMIK-1 is very popular among ASR users. Then you measure using REW, a fairly robust bit of software. Based on those results, you can automatically or manually create EQ filters.

You can get started as @GGroch says, download an app, find out where the frequency response has serious deviations in your room, and correct them with EQ.

Doing corrections based on a review is also fine, you can use this to devise some filters: https://www.rtings.com/speaker/graph/4559/raw-frequency-response-graph/google-home-max/1718

You CAN take a screenshot of this, and using FPGraphTracer extract the data, import that into REW, and then use REW to generate EQ settings.

Keep in mind that correcting dips below ~200hz may strain the speaker and not work well. It's always preferable to lower gain with EQ rather than boost, but especially in the lows.

 

[astr0b0y]

I use HouseCurve to measure and create EQs for desktop, car, and kitchen speakers. It has a bunch of ways to export EQs to suit your playback software.

 

[GGroch]

Doing corrections based on a review is also fine, you can use this to devise some filters: https://www.rtings.com/speaker/graph/4559/raw-frequency-response-graph/google-home-max/1718

Less fine with highly engineered active speakers like the Google Max I think. Active Speakers like the Max have frequency responses that were already EQ'd by Google and Digital Sound Processed to be exactly like they wanted. You might disagree with their choices but if you are a total noob with speaker EQ it is unlikely you will make better ones based on a speaker measurement response from a review.

In this case, I think the room EQ options mentioned are the best choice, followed by just adjusting EQ by ear so they sound good to you.

 

[powerwolve]

Thanks all, I appreciate the responses! I did a bit of digging before I realized I received these replies, and did find out the following, wanted to report back in case this is of interest or benefit to anyone else:

I found a very helpful YouTube video which shows you how to download and extract the frequency responses from rtings.com:

Using that plus the above linked GHM review from rtings, I created a frequency response data file and tried using https://autoeq.app/ to create an EQ file against a Harman target profile (I used this OTHER video to create the points for that:

) and came up with the attached correction, which I, in theory, should be able to apply via my EQ app and have closer to the Harman target. However, some of the gains seem excessive from what little I know about this, so will continue looking into this and doing some research. If anyone has thoughts on the attached EQ settings, either from the 10-band EQ output or the settings I am running this against on the left hand side, I would welcome them.

I do understand that the room EQ is going to play a big factor in all of this, just not sure I want to go into that level of effort yet. I was just hoping for something simpler, and to do some "general" correction rather than getting too far down the rabbit hole.

 

[kemmler3D]

Thanks all, I appreciate the responses! I did a bit of digging before I realized I received these replies, and did find out the following, wanted to report back in case this is of interest or benefit to anyone else:

I found a very helpful YouTube video which shows you how to download and extract the frequency responses from rtings.com:

Using that plus the above linked GHM review from rtings, I created a frequency response data file and tried using https://autoeq.app/ to create an EQ file against a Harman target profile (I used this OTHER video to create the points for that:

) and came up with the attached correction, which I, in theory, should be able to apply via my EQ app and have closer to the Harman target. However, some of the gains seem excessive from what little I know about this, so will continue looking into this and doing some research. If anyone has thoughts on the attached EQ settings, either from the 10-band EQ output or the settings I am running this against on the left hand side, I would welcome them.

I do understand that the room EQ is going to play a big factor in all of this, just not sure I want to go into that level of effort yet. I was just hoping for something simpler, and to do some "general" correction rather than getting too far down the rabbit hole.

At first glance you should definitely not be applying +12dB to the 31hz band, probably shouldn't touch that band at all, since the speaker itself isn't really capable of producing bass that low. Otherwise looks good from a quick glance.