PEQ speaker to a headphone target?

[davmol]

I listen at my desk with headphones during the day when working and then often listen to speakers on an evening. I love the sound with the headphones but when it comes to the speakers something just sounds a little "hollowed out", or dare I use that much loved vague word "warmth", which the headphones have and the speakers seem to be lacking to some extent. If I were to try and pinpoint it, I would say that the deep bass on the Lintons is great, as well as the vocals and treble, so the "gap" is somewhere between the deep / low-end bass and the vocals.

An example today would be when I was listening on my headphones to a Joe Bonamassa track, called 24hr Blues, and I loved everything about it. Later this evening, I was listening to the hifi, and I decided to play the same track (still via Spotify) but now it sounded sort of "hollowed out".

Headphone setup:

• Topping D50III
• Topping A50III
• Hifiman Ananda (original), with Oratory1990 PEQ applied

Stereo setup

• WiiM Ultra
• Fosi V3 Mono
• Wharfedale Linton 85th Speakers

The WiiM has room correction applied, which was done with a calibrated mic, using cut mode, Harman curve and 1/3 octave. Looking at the PEQ, it has mainly adjusted frequencies below 70hz, which took away the "boominess" and overall has made for a big improvement in the room, so I'm not sure that will be the culprit. I've tried turning on and off but I mostly just notice that boomy bass kick in again when it's off.

So, I'm wondering what anyone might recommend I try to either fix the problem, if that is what it is, or just to adjust the speaker setup to my taste, using PEQ?

I assume that given Oratory's headphone PEQ corrections are designed to align to Harman then that would be my preference, and is what I should be aiming for with the speakers? Is it reasonable to consider trying to replicate the response of the PEQ corrected Anandas at that lower end (until vocals start to kick in)? All suggestions welcome, thanks!

 

[kemmler3D]

Headphone EQ targets (Harman in particular) are meant to sound like ideal speakers in a room, so to approach that sound with speakers your broad goal should simply to get a flat, slightly downward tilted response in your room. The headphone targets and EQ curves basically compensate for the difference in frequency response you get from strapping the speakers to your head, so that's not something you can apply to actual speakers.

A hollow sounding lower midrange could be caused by poor placement, SBIR, excess reflection in the room causing comb filtering, etc. Lots of possible causes, some correctable with EQ, some not.

Since you have a calibrated mic, a good next step would be to take some measurements with REW and post the graphs and mdat files here. We can try and see what's causing the hollow sound and suggest a fix.

 

[TurtlePaul]

Don’t use cut-only mode. If you let it, there is a good chance there is a broad upper bass dip which you are not allowing the Eq to fill. I know that my space calls for a 2 dB low-Q (~1.5) boost around 175 hz or it doesn’t have any bass texture. Pretty unfair to compare your speakers with only cuts when your headphone target has 7dB of bass boost.

 

[davmol]

Thanks I'll give that a try. I'm fairly new to room correction and was following online guidance that room correction should be cut only to deal with resonances etc. I'm also running it from 35hz to 400hz, does that sound ok for the range? I had set out as 35hz because that's the lower limit of my Wharfedale SW-150 sub that I was using before I acquired the Linton's.

Also should I set the max dB and Q to a limit or leave as default +12db / +10 and see what happens?

Ill post the WiiM graphs hear when I run it later today.I might also give the REW a try, although seems a little daunting.

 

[TurtlePaul]

Thanks I'll give that a try.

The main difficulty with using boost is that every 3 dB requires double the power. I would try 6 dB max boost first.

35 - 400 hz sounds like a fine range and should be able to capture your hollow issue I think.

Leave the max Q at 10 for now to deal with the resonances. Resonances sound worse than dips, but as you can tell, a broad enough dip also sounds bad.

 

[davmol]

Sorry for the delay coming back, but I was able to take a bunch of measurements on REW using an Eversolo EM01 mic with calibration file. I took five readings for each speaker spaced about 6 inches apart at the listening position, then averaged them. There is quite a difference in the response because one side of the room is open where the right speaker is located - note this is 0.5 / wide angle shot, so might look a bit fish eye

Also note that the sub is not in use, I had previously used it with the small bookshelf speakers but the Lintons go low enough on their own.

Left (12th Smoothing)- the "something missing" that I was talking about was evident with between about 100 and 175 hz (white is the average of the 5 readings):

Right - similar result with a trough at roughly 130hz (red is the average of the 5 readings):

I used custom configuration on REW EQ to set max 10 bands of auto EQ so I could enter into WiiM. I found that if I went beyond 1/6th smoothing it would completely ignore the troughs that needed correcting, so had to leave it set at 1/6th, and set 40hz to 400hz as the range and a Harman target curve (from StaticV3 on this site).

Left PEQ:

Right PEQ:

Something I didn't mention was that I was also struggling somewhat with the higher-end when playing at louder volumes. I was able to analyse a couple of tracks that cause problems for me at higher volumes, and also play some frequency sweeps and I decided the main "pain point" for my ears is between 3khz and 5khz. I added a PK filter at 4khz (-5db on left speaker and -3db on right speaker) and played around with the Q until it felt about right at 1.5, so the dips roughly started around 2khz and ended by 6khz, with the mid points of the fall and rise cutting through the 3 & 5khz.

The charts seem to show some general issues with the higher frequencies continuing to rise, in particular with the right speaker from about 5khz. Not much I can do about the room layout but I plan to add some heavy material on the wall behind me which is bare painted plaster, and assume this might help me out with the treble reflections. I'm not going to go crazy on room treatments as this is really a temporary location until next year, so just want to enjoy listening and think I am getting there now, as it sounds "full" again, and I can crank it nice and loud on occasion without my ear drums screaming in agony when a high vocal appears on a track!

Thanks for the help. This is my first time using REW, and while I got the hang of the application / GUI quite quickly, I wouldn't profess to know anything about whether what I've done is right or wrong, so feel free to let me know if there are things I've missed or need to do / improve on to get the best from the measurements and PEQ.

 

[Eleo]

Sorry for the delay coming back, but I was able to take a bunch of measurements on REW using an Eversolo EM01 mic with calibration file. I took five readings for each speaker spaced about 6 inches apart at the listening position, then averaged them. There is quite a difference in the response because one side of the room is open where the right speaker is located - note this is 0.5 / wide angle shot, so might look a bit fish eye
View attachment 471575
Also note that the sub is not in use, I had previously used it with the small bookshelf speakers but the Lintons go low enough on their own.

Left (12th Smoothing)- the "something missing" that I was talking about was evident with between about 100 and 175 hz (white is the average of the 5 readings):
View attachment 471578

Right - similar result with a trough at roughly 130hz (red is the average of the 5 readings):
View attachment 471579

I used custom configuration on REW EQ to set max 10 bands of auto EQ so I could enter into WiiM. I found that if I went beyond 1/6th smoothing it would completely ignore the troughs that needed correcting, so had to leave it set at 1/6th, and set 40hz to 400hz as the range and a Harman target curve (from StaticV3 on this site).

Left PEQ:
View attachment 471580

View attachment 471581

Right PEQ:

View attachment 471585
View attachment 471586

Something I didn't mention was that I was also struggling somewhat with the higher-end when playing at louder volumes. I was able to analyse a couple of tracks that cause problems for me at higher volumes, and also play some frequency sweeps and I decided the main "pain point" for my ears is between 3khz and 5khz. I added a PK filter at 4khz (-5db on left speaker and -3db on right speaker) and played around with the Q until it felt about right at 1.5, so the dips roughly started around 2khz and ended by 6khz, with the mid points of the fall and rise cutting through the 3 & 5khz.

The charts seem to show some general issues with the higher frequencies continuing to rise, in particular with the right speaker from about 5khz. Not much I can do about the room layout but I plan to add some heavy material on the wall behind me which is bare painted plaster, and assume this might help me out with the treble reflections. I'm not going to go crazy on room treatments as this is really a temporary location until next year, so just want to enjoy listening and think I am getting there now, as it sounds "full" again, and I can crank it nice and loud on occasion without my ear drums screaming in agony when a high vocal appears on a track!

Thanks for the help. This is my first time using REW, and while I got the hang of the application / GUI quite quickly, I wouldn't profess to know anything about whether what I've done is right or wrong, so feel free to let me know if there are things I've missed or need to do / improve on to get the best from the measurements and PEQ.

I don't think you can address the dip above 100 Hz with EQ; a 10 dB boost isn't realistic. Try changing the placement or adding the sub. This worked for me. I have the Lintons and had a nasty dip in this area. I added two small Yamaha subs and the dips is gone away. I have gained nothing as low extension but my FR is ways flatter