Equalizer issues - Sound is louder when no bass in music

[Lutan]

Hi all,

I'm using the Asus Xonar Audio Centre equalizer to add a bit more low end to my music. With the lower frequencies increased, it sounds like the sound is just muffled with the highs decreased, rather than lows increased. So I have the low frequencies turned up as well as the highs a bit.

Problem is, when I'm playing music the sound level will flucuate when there are bass notes playing in the song to when there aren't any. So when the bass stops, the sound is louder.

I'm using an Asus Xonar Essence ST with line out to a Topping L30 amp.

Just found the equalizer issue is only there when listening through the Topping L30, and not when listening straight from the Xonar card build in headphone amp.

Anyone know what might be causing this or how to fix it?

Thank you.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Sounds like there is compression going on somewhere.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Lutan]

Thanks Wayne. What would that mean? Is there anything I can do to test or correct it?

Is it possible that it's the amp that's the issue? It's new and I bought it in preparation for upgrading my PC which won't have a PCI slot for the Xonar Essence ST. So I'll also be getting a DAC later on.

I'm not sure if the line out from the Xonar Essence ST is working correctly, or of it's the Topping L30 that's the issue. Headphones sound fine plugged directly into the soundcard.

 

[Fluffy]

I'm not familiar with the Asus card and its interface. I can recommend EQ APO ( https://sourceforge.net/projects/equalizerapo/ ) to use as a system wide EQ that gives you full control with a simple interface. It does exactly what you tell it to do, so no hidden compression and stuff like that.

 

[JohnYang1997]

You can't 'boost' bass. EQ in digital domain can only work cleanly in substraction. Meaning, you can only get a better tonality by decreasing all other frequencies. If you want more oomphs, EQ can't give you that.
However, you can turn up the volume to compensate for that hence you still end up boosting bass but in the analogue amplifier.

 

[Vini darko]

Hi it might be clipping. Do you have any eq points above 0db?

 

[Vini darko]

You can't 'boost' bass. EQ in digital domain can only work cleanly in substraction. Meaning, you can only get a better tonality by decreasing all other frequencies. If you want more oomphs, EQ can't give you that.

You beat me to it

 

[daftcombo]

All EQ points should be 0 dB or less.

In EqualizerAPO you can EQ to increase some frequency ranges and add a pre-amp function (before) so that everything is under 0 dB.

 

[Lutan]

I've tried Equalizer APO, same thing happens. I've also tried changing players to Music Bee and Foobar. Still the same.

I have the EQ sliders all at 0, then up around 5, 3, 2, for the lowest frequencies.

As you can probably tell, I'm not really sure how all this works, but using the headphone amp built into the sound card with the changes to the EQ, there are differences in the low end, but the volume levels remain the same throughout a song. Only when EQ changes are active and and using the external amp does the volume level appear to increase and decrease as bass notes come in.

Should I be reducing all other frequencies down instead?

When using the external amp, does anyone know if the volume on the Xonar Essence software should be at a certain level?

 

[dasdoing]

you are hitting a limiter somewhere. I suspect in the speakers (subwoofer?).
does the same happen at low volumes?

 

[zermak]

When using the external amp, does anyone know if the volume on the Xonar Essence software should be at a certain level?

About this. There is a known issue so you better keep the mixer playback sliders in the Asus Audio Center at 76%.

While usi any digital equalization you should keep the total gain to (or under) 0dB FS and it means that if you want more bass you have to lower the high frequencies volume (with negative gain).
For a simple test on EqualizerAPO, try using/adding a High-shelf filter with the parameters you want (for example 80Hz as center frequency and like -5dB as gain) and give it a go listening to the music and see if the problems you are having still remain or not.

 

[daftcombo]

I have the EQ sliders all at 0, then up around 5, 3, 2, for the lowest frequencies.

You need to add a pre-amp in EqualizerAPO, set to -5dB, -3dB or -2dB accordingly.

 

[Fluffy]

You can't 'boost' bass. EQ in digital domain can only work cleanly in substraction. Meaning, you can only get a better tonality by decreasing all other frequencies. If you want more oomphs, EQ can't give you that.
However, you can turn up the volume to compensate for that hence you still end up boosting bass but in the analogue amplifier.

That’s only true if the audio stream is normalized to 0 dbfs. If, for example, the peak value of the track is at -5 dbfs, you can boost +5 db at any frequency you like and have no issues.

Of course its better practice to apply negative gain to the entire spectrum (=pre-amp function in EQ APO), and then boost the frequencies you want at up to that gain to avoid any chance of clipping. In that case the actual volume boosting will indeed come from the amplifier.

Anyway @Lutan , I suggest also making sure you don't have any boxes checked in the enhancement tab of your sound device properties. It looks like this:

 

[Lutan]

Hi all,

Thanks to everyone for your help and input.

I think it's fixed! Just did a bunch of testing, and it seems like the issue was fixed by decreasing the mixer sliders in Xonar Audio Centre to 75%. Thanks Zermak.

I've checked the speaker properties, and I don't have any enhancements active. I'm also now using only Equalizer APO with Peace interface, instead of the Xonar equalizer, which is off. I wasn't able to find the 'high-shelf filter' with the Peace interface (quick look), I didn't look into how to revert to the original interface as the issue seemed to be fixed.

Appreciate the advice on reducing eq on prominent frequencies rather than increasing desired ones. My settings in EQ APO are -6.5 on the preamp, with the low frequencies up to +6.5, then tapering down in the mids and slightly up again in the highs. Seems to be what suits my headphones/ears. Will probably fiddle with this more later.

I'm so glad I asked on here. I spent ages looking around online for a solution beforehand and I should have just come straight here. I already knew about these forums from looking up reviews.

Thanks again everyone

 

[zermak]

I think it's fixed! Just did a bunch of testing, and it seems like the issue was fixed by decreasing the mixer sliders in Xonar Audio Centre to 75%. Thanks Zermak.

I've checked the speaker properties, and I don't have any enhancements active. I'm also now using only Equalizer APO with Peace interface, instead of the Xonar equalizer, which is off. I wasn't able to find the 'high-shelf filter' with the Peace interface (quick look), I didn't look into how to revert to the original interface as the issue seemed to be fixed.

I don't use Peace interface because it doesn't give you full access to the EqualizerAPO functionalities and so on. If you want to add the high-shelf filter then you have to use the EqualizerAPO Configuration Editor program.

Appreciate the advice on reducing eq on prominent frequencies rather than increasing desired ones. My settings in EQ APO are -6.5 on the preamp, with the low frequencies up to +6.5, then tapering down in the mids and slightly up again in the highs. Seems to be what suits my headphones/ears. Will probably fiddle with this more later.

If you want to go deeper in EQ-ing your headphones you can try to use the filters provided by @jaakkopasanen (with his AutoEQ) to compensate for the Harman curves (if you like such curves).

 

[Lutan]

Thanks @zermak . I'll look into removing the Peace interface in the future, at the moment it's working well, and I did end up finding the high shelf filter in the little buttons below the eq values/sliders. The Auto EQ and Harman curves seem a bit more technical, so will leave that for some time when I feel more experiemental. Thanks again.