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EQ headphones, why?
- Thread starter musica
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Depends how bad the FR is away from your taste /target and how easy /hard applying eq is in your rig.
DVDdoug
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In the old days I used to feel guilty using EQ... I guess it was because I was admitting that my stereo was not good enough. Ironically, this was in the vinyl days when most records were not that great and they often really needed some high-end boost.I assume you know what EQ does?
Headphones and speakers are imperfect so they can (usually) benefit from EQ as correction. But with good headphones you may not need or want EQ. (Most electronics have flat frequency response.)
Also, speakers interact with the room so they sound different in different rooms and to some extent headphones interact with the shape of the ear (slightly different on different people). Sometimes with closed headphones the seal varies from person-to-person and that affects the bass. Headphones are also notoriously difficult to measure and different measurement setups will give different results.
Further complicating things, a headphone with perfectly-flat frequency response won't sound flat or perfect (to most listeners). The Harman Curve represents a statistical preference.
There are a few different reasons for using EQ...
- Correction of speaker-room or headphone frequency response.
- Loudness compensation. When you turn-down the volume it sounds like you've turned-down the bass even more. Most older receivers had a "loudness" switch that boosted the bass (relatively) as you turned-down the volume control. That's rare today but there are some AVRs with a "better" method that's calibrated to the gain and the acoustic loudness in the room instead of just relying on the volume-knob setting.
- Adjusting to taste-preference. i.e. Some people just like to boost the bass, etc.
- During production the mixing engineer might use EQ to correct the sound (microphones are also imperfect) or more often as an effect to enhance or alter the sound of various voices/instruments. The mastering will usually use EQ (along with dynamic compression other effects) to further tweak or "enhance" the sound.
- Some older recordings may have rolled-off highs or weak bass, etc., and that can be improved. Or, I have some a few modern "pop" recordings where the bass is overpowering and annoying to me. Of course that's also a personal preference and I'm not listening as the artist/producer intended.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
fpitas
Master Contributor
I'd try for the Harman curve first.
fpitas
Master Contributor
My morality allows EQ 
DVDdoug
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You just have to play around (experiment). Graphic EQ is easier to play-around with than parametric EQ. You have be a little careful boosting because you can drive the amplifier or headphone into distortion. It's usually better to cut the other frequencies, or don't go too crazy with the boost. With digital EQ it's also possible to clip (distort) the digital data and some digital EQs have a "preamp" control that's normally used to attenuate the overall level than to amplify/boost so you're not digitally clipping.
Headphones reviewed here have a frequency response measurement and a recommended correction to the Harman curve. That could be a good place to start before any personal-preference adjustments.
fpitas
Master Contributor
Beware EQing to make one track sound great. Often, you're just remixing/remastering that track, and other tracks won't sound as good, or just bad. That's part of the reason EQ got a bad name; it's easy to make things worse than no EQ.
Depends what you like. I tend to buy headphones that have a decent response to begin with, where eq can improve things but use without is fine. I’ve heard some headphones that I can’t bear without eq, but I wouldn’t buy them to begin with.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
It makes my crappy headphones sound waaaay better. It definitely feels right. Don't care for any puritan/elitist reasons used to classify it as "wrong"
Cote Dazur
Addicted to Fun and Learning
@DVDdoug really nailed the answer, all I would like to add, is that for me, following advice from someone like @amirm who does EQ in relation to measurements he makes for a particular set of headphones or IEMs, makes perfect sense, so that would be right (for me) but if one needs to EQ, just by listening, I believe this leads to creating more issues than correcting anything, so that would be wrong (for me).
I prefer no EQ, rather that it's tuned right out of the box. Just because one less variable to deal with. Also less amp headroom required. On top of that I can evaluate the headphone directly, I don't need to imagine what something sounds like with EQ.
I would maybe have a different opinion if there was a lack of headphones with my preferred tuning available.
I would maybe have a different opinion if there was a lack of headphones with my preferred tuning available.
I EQ every headphone to flat target with SoundID reference. Couldn't be easier, most headphones are already in database so it's click and play.
I like Harman with my speakers but somehow it just don't work for me with headphones. Got my LCD-X from storage and started with Oratory settings. Oh boy, I kind of get what it is trying to do but there is just too much of... everything. Flat is just so serene and natural sounding.
I like Harman with my speakers but somehow it just don't work for me with headphones. Got my LCD-X from storage and started with Oratory settings. Oh boy, I kind of get what it is trying to do but there is just too much of... everything. Flat is just so serene and natural sounding.
D
Deleted member 4708
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Almost always a great idea. Most headphones have incorrect tonality and that can be easily fixed through PEQ. The benefits are real.
Very few headphones do not need EQ: Senny HD600 and HD650, Beyer 880, Dan Clark Stealth.
Look at the score here: https://www.reddit.com/r/oratory1990/wiki/index/list_of_presets/
For example Sennheiser 8xx has an awful tonality (score 57). There is no point in owning something like that without EQ.
posvibes
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EQ, especially PEQ has been the most valuable discovery I have made in audio bar none. I wish I had the knowledge, time and patience to experiment and to play with EQ settings to see if I prefer profiles other than what I have found on this site from Amir and other contributors as well as Oratory and Crinacle and the like.
The headphones I tend to use are all very listenable without EQ but they all gain advantage from EQ especially when I closely listen to music using EQ. Those differences have helped me refine my critical listening capability and understanding what those EQ changes are making.
The headphones I tend to use are all very listenable without EQ but they all gain advantage from EQ especially when I closely listen to music using EQ. Those differences have helped me refine my critical listening capability and understanding what those EQ changes are making.
staticV3
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The music that you know best. Ideally something that covers a wide frequency range.
To check tonality, Hold the Line by Toto works well for me.
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Depends what frequencies you are changing. If you want more bass and have increased the bass frequencies then something you know with good low end.
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