Nobsound EQ9 9-band graphic equaliser

[Mark S.]

Just tested one out, between a TV (which happens to have a headphone-out) and a pair of decent self-powered 'multimedia' speakers.

Fricking excellent.

EQ in the analogue domain so no worries about clipping, enables a 'U' shape ('smiley') EQ curve cutting out mid-bass boom (for e.g from male voices) while keeping the bass, allows my elderly mum to hear dialogue without her having to crank the volume to the point of antagonising her neighbours, while being easy on the ears for people in-room at low volume/background.

I've ordered another one, I think it deserves to sell in enough numbers to be kept in production.

 

[Mark S.]

I'm going to try rationalising my set-up with an EQ9.

Heretofore my SMSL SU1 DAC has been feeding my amp and speakers via USB with Equaliser APO - great.

But no EQ available with the optical out from my TV (from a streaming box - my TV will NEVER be connected to the internet).

So - SMSL SU1 from either USB from PC (no digital EQ) or optical from TV (from streaming box) out to the Nobsound EQ9, out to my amp and speakers.

 

[Mark S.]

... except I just remembered what the problem is and always has been with optical-in - no remote volume control. Fck!!!!! Fckity Fck!!!!!

Digital attenuation being the reason I bought an SMSL Sanskrit III in Dec 2024 that died 9 months later - fck you, SMSL

 

[Mark S.]

Just discovered that you can get simple SPDIF to USB (PCM) dongles so I've ordered one (£22) which will allow looping the TV's optical out (only used when streaming from a Roku - no TV of mine will ever be connected to the internet if I can help it) through the PC and out to the SU1. Users report practically zero latency, but for movies anything up 40-50 ms doesn't matter anyway.

I had thought of something along these lines but didn't realise such simple gizmos existed, I was still in the 2010's and assumed I'd need a full-blown USB 'soundcard'/interface.

Means I'll have digital volume/attenuation and be able to use either digital EQ (APO) or the EQ9, probably go with the latter.

 

[Mark S.]

The toslink/SPDIF-to-USB dongle works well, as in adequately for movies and TV.

Captured a 24/48 sweep from from a USB stick plugged into the TV and the plot gets very noisy above c. 8KHz, but subjectively the sound is still clean and clear with no gross artefacts like pops, drop-outs, hiss etc'.

The EQ9 produces FAR more of a subjective difference from its specified +/- 6dB per band than Equalizer APO does with similar gain/attenuation, there are no concerns with clipping and frankly I prefer the resulting sound.

 

[Mark S.]

Just discovered that there are limiter VST plugins which work in Equaliser APO, been experimenting with one called Loudmax (there are others, but this one seems to be well-liked, it's been refined for many years and simple to configure).

I've been trying it out with movies/TV, from my PC library and TV (Roku and BRD player), to try and ameliorate the problem of over-the-top dynamic range (neighbour-baiting crescendos and inaudible whispered/muttered dialogue).

There's no single setting for a limiter or compressor for all content (soundtracks are all over the place in terms of levels), but I've surfed a bunch of movies and TV with a threshold/limit of -9dB and it's worked pretty well for late-night.

 

[Redacted]

If you have ripped films or get_iplayer video downloads you can run them through ffmpeg to normalize volume into an additional audio track. Or, for example do your own 7.1 to stereo mix (usually to improve dialogue over what a TV does). It's literally just running a script on a folder of films.

 

[Mark S.]

I'll give that a go sometime.

I've used various methods for stuff in my PC library, for some years it's been extracting audio (using FFMPEG because it can grab anything up to and including all the lossless formats like DTS MA) and making my own stereo mix-down (usually as QAAC), various amounts of compression and attenuation on the individual tracks, I can get usually get them done in about 5 minutes.

THis is new though, having the PC act as a real-time DSP for streamed content (stereo only, I've never owned a surround system and probably never will) is a real novelty, I've actually been trawling Amazon Prime for a few nights for the first time in a couple of years (even coughed-up to go 'ad-free'!) using speakers rather than phones which otherwise I always felt compelled to late-night.

 

[Mark S.]

A tip for anyone trying to use a limiter or compressor plugin with Equalizer-APO;

place it BEFORE graphic EQ for whichever device. I'd almost given up trying to make a couple of them work acceptably before it occurred to me to try it (mainly bad 'pumping' on some soundtracks).

In place of 'Loudmax' I've been trying out Audio Damage Rough Rider 3 (LoL), a compressor, unsure whether it's better or worse as a set/forget than the former.

I know all this will be facile for people more au fait, but several hours of google-fu never found me this solution.

 

[Mark S.]

OK, settled on Rough Rider 3, which I generally leave set to;
- threshold (also known as 'knee') -24dB
- ratio c. 2.5:1 (can only be roughly set, you drag a slider that jumps in whole integers while actually being much more granular, but fortunately the analysis panel in EQ APO moves in real time with it if you tick the RR panel option to 'apply automatically'),
- make up gain 6dB (keeps peaks well under 0dB)

that's fairly heavy compression, but it really suits quiet levels/late-night for my purposes.

It is, however, not AT ALL suitable for music (which is generally constantly LOUD at close to 0dB), but it doesn't take long to adjust, or it can simply be temporarily removed and added back in a few seconds, it retains its settings (I generally use FB2K with WASAPI for music).

(ISN'T IT STRANGE HOW WE'VE ENDED UP WITH MOVIES ON HOME FORMATS WITH VAST DYNAMICS AND MUSIC WITH PRACTICALLY NONE?)

The panel order in Equalizer APO is compressor > preamplification > EQ

As I mentioned, having EQ before compression doesn't work for reasons that are obvious when you think about it (adding bass before the compressor skews the compressor's response and causes obvious pumping).

APO's analysis panel fortunately seems to interpret the peak level from the compressor and sums it with the preamp to give a good idea of final peak volume (I leave it at -6dB, no problem given all processing is at 32 bits (which is overkill, 24 would be plenty) and the USB DAC has a noise floor of c. -116dB).

This is all pretty simple stuff, processing the default stereo mix from players like MPC and Kodi, but now also the stereo from my Roku streamer and BRD/DVD player via the TV's optical out, for which it's been something of a game changer (it really had to be headphones or subtitles with them after 10 PM).

Apparently if you were so inclined you could set something similar up with a surround system from the PC's lines out.