Schiit Loki Mini+ Equalizer Review

[dtaylo1066]

I think the idea, as far as there being a need, is sound, but the execution is not done in the most useful way.

The idea is, do all your system EQ with a powerful DSP system, and lock it in. You may have a handful of presets for certain situations.

Then have a separate program tone control that allows crude but quick and easy compensation for less-than-ideal program content sound quality, including badly mastered recordings.

The program tone control needs to be:-

1. instantly accessible, not buried in menus
2. only a few seconds to adjust, not complex
3. smooth 'dial by ear' adjustment
4. instantly resettable to zero or bypass
5. based on 'shelf-and knee' approach, not bandpass lumps and bumps

Toole speaks about the high utility of such a control, and referenced the old quad preamps as having the right idea.

IMO this sort of device could allocate its 4 dials to: bass shelf amplitude, bass knee frequency, treble knee frequency, treble shelf amplitude. That would do the trick.

The target audience would be all of us.

cheers

I see and recognize your point. Thanks. I have never been one much for tone control usage in my system, and I don't listen on headphones, so perhaps my POV is a bit off center.

 

[kemmler3D]

I think the idea, as far as there being a need, is sound, but the execution is not done in the most useful way.

The idea is, do all your system EQ with a powerful DSP system, and lock it in. You may have a handful of presets for certain situations.

Then have a separate program tone control that allows crude but quick and easy compensation for less-than-ideal program content sound quality, including badly mastered recordings.

The program tone control needs to be:-

1. instantly accessible, not buried in menus
2. only a few seconds to adjust, not complex
3. smooth 'dial by ear' adjustment
4. instantly resettable to zero or bypass
5. based on 'shelf-and knee' approach, not bandpass lumps and bumps

Toole speaks about the high utility of such a control, and referenced the old quad preamps as having the right idea.

IMO this sort of device could allocate its 4 dials to: bass shelf amplitude, bass knee frequency, treble knee frequency, treble shelf amplitude. That would do the trick.

The target audience would be all of us.

cheers

Yeah, after a little reflection I see this as a fancy tone control, not a "real" EQ. If you want something like that, it seems pretty useful. I have an old HK IA and I think this would be better than the bass/treble knobs on that thing.

When I thought this was a "real" EQ with only +/- 3dB, it seemed really dumb. But thinking about it as a 4-bad tone control with +/- 12 or 6dB, I think there is a good place for it in the market. Even pro mixer channel strips often have a "mini" 3-band EQ for broad, slight adjustments of this type.

 

[Mike-48]

Not sure who the audience for this is.

The audience is someone with not a lot of money who has a large music library (or in these days of streaming, wide musical interests) and who wants to make flawed recordings sound better. I guess @pma beat me to that comment, but it bears repeating.

In response to a previous comment: The value of an analog EQ is that it can be applied to any or all sources. As great as the DSP in the RME DACs might be, it's of no help in playing LPs (for example).

There is no reason to expect any equalizer to produce a flat response except when all the knobs are turned to "flat." Bell-shaped curves do not sum to flat unless you have far more of them than four. There's no reason to have such a response as a design criterion, anyway. It's not a volume control.

 

[IAmAlwaysSerious]

The audience is someone with not a lot of money who has a large music library (or in these days of streaming, wide musical interests) and who wants to make flawed recordings sound better. I guess @pma beat me to that comment, but it bears repeating.

There are plenty more use cases, too. I used mine to quickly adjust sound in video games, to avoid missing some important audio cues. It may not be the best choice for any given situation, but it does allow me to make the changes very quickly.

I also used mine as a low-cut filter for a pair of bookshelf speakers at my desk. Not because I didn't want the lower frequencies, but because I powered them with a THX 789 and I didn't want to waste the limited power output where the speakers couldn't really reproduce anything.
First knob all the way to the left, second knob turned right to taste. I only had to flick the bypass switch when switching back to headphones, too. I managed fairly flat frequency response in the range my speakers could cover.

At the time, I had wanted to get the best sound quality I could with the cheapest used stuff I could find. It was good sound quality for very little money or effort.

 

[jbattman1016]

The audience is someone with not a lot of money who has a large music library (or in these days of streaming, wide musical interests) and who wants to make flawed recordings sound better. I guess @pma beat me to that comment, but it bears repeating.

In response to a previous comment: The value of an analog EQ is that it can be applied to any or all sources. As great as the DSP in the RME DACs might be, it's of no help in playing LPs (for example).

There is no reason to expect any equalizer to produce a flat response except when all the knobs are turned to "flat." Bell-shaped curves do not sum to flat unless you have far more of them than four. There's no reason to have such a response as a design criterion, anyway. It's not a volume control.

To be fair, this product isn't THAT affordable. I believe with shipping and tax it was close to $200 for me, which is when I turned to the used market.

 

[Robbo99999]

Seems like a pretty pointless product nowadays (miniDSP and software parametric EQ possibilities to rival and outdo), and not particularly well implemented anyway.

 

[KR500]

I own one and enjoy using the Loki as a glorified kind of tone control in my headphone setup with very minor adjustments and it works well there. I also have a stereo 31 band graphic eq in my secondary system.
Thanks for reviewing Amir although it was a bringdown to see that pink panther for the Loki.
One of the reasons I purchased my NAD amplifier was that it had a defeatable bass and treble tone knobs for minor adjustments
I listen to Apple Lossless streaming music and AIFF files but have a huge physical media collection which is my primary listening source.
When Amir pulls out his eq tools I am jealous and know it is much less noisy than my analog units.
I think about adding dsp or roon, but just haven’t made the leap….yet.
There aren’t many software eq choices available in the Apple world either compared to Windows

 

[Count Dacula]

I have one for my 2ch AV system, which is a little flat otherwise. tbh the tone controls on the NAK Receiver 2 I use are a bit ineffectual, the Loki gives it's gain across a wider band, apparently. I run it strait off my older ARCAM mini DAC, requisite for getting any audio out of the TV.

My previous speakers in that role needed a bit more brightness too, all of which is forgivable on an AV system (for me). My primo system is in the bedroom, with the PC and treatment of a ton of clothes on shelves and hanging up around the speakers. So the livingroom system is semi-minimalist 2ch AV, which I would never go buy specific equipment for; it will always be recycled from my main system. The point is, the Loki is the perfect "tool" to keep that older equipment barking out YouTube videos over the rest of the living room rabble, not for hair-splitting THD numbers. Every MTV era track has a different mix, so when I need to adjust it, I REALLY need to adjust it fast, am I gonna scroll thru 2 inch digital menus to adjust sound for one song?

I rated it "fine", based on price, functionality, sound and no scratching noises!

 

[restorer-john]

I set all the controls at max and min which should just set the unit up for flat response and act as extra or negative gain:

The lack of HF measurement points is not helping with that graph. There appears to be just 6 spot frequencies measured between 2kHz and 20kHz. No analog treble control can produce a chopped up shape like that.

You need several hundred points for tone control curve behaviour, especially when you have more than just bass and treble and interactions between the controls.

 

[Moderate Dionysianism]

have you checked the used market? Some ten band eqs there for not much, but I'm in the US.

I'm planning to measure the one I have, just saving up for equipment.

10 bands is way too much for my use case, note how I said "compact". I need something stackable with a TCA HPA-1 or a similar form factor HP amp. Besides, I don't feel confident about buying second hand devices with multiple potentiometers, hard to assess the wear&tear isn't it?

 

[pma]

The lack of HF measurement points is not helping with that graph. There appears to be just 6 spot frequencies measured between 2kHz and 20kHz. No analog treble control can produce a chopped up shape like that.

You need several hundred points for tone control curve behaviour, especially when you have more than just bass and treble and interactions between the controls.

He needs to make frequency sweep instead of stepped frequency with few steps as he has been using by now. The result with a sweep is then continuous. As shown below:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/audiophonics-pre-tc10-freqresps4-all-png.287328/

 

[amirm]

I think your software has generates a misleading graph. It's showing the difference in frequency response between all knobs centered and any given knob turned, yes. The problem is that it's representing all the results as relative to 1khz.

No it is not. There is no intelligence in the software. It is just a pure frequency sweep. That the graphs cross at 1 kHz is due to the way the filters are implemented in Loki. Not because I did anything special. Yes, I set reference signal at 1 kHz but that does nothing to automatically align anything.

 

[amirm]

The lack of HF measurement points is not helping with that graph. There appears to be just 6 spot frequencies measured between 2kHz and 20kHz. No analog treble control can produce a chopped up shape like that.

??? That is not the point of that graph.

 

[IAmAlwaysSerious]

No it is not. There is no intelligence in the software. It is just a pure frequency sweep.

Sorry if I was less clear than I could have been, I wasn't trying to imply that it was done maliciously. I don't believe you'd represent the results with any intention to deceive.

But I do think the results are leading you to the wrong conclusion. My graph from page 1 should be plenty of proof that this is worth investigating again.

There's a quick and easy way to check if the middle or rightmost knobs actually reduce volume at bass frequencies - just play a 50 or 100hz tone through the loki mini and play with the right knobs. You'll find that turning the knobs up will not reduce the volume of the bass frequency tone. Use an SPL meter if you like.

Unless your loki is vastly different from mine, you'll find that the results match my graph fairly well.

You're free to use my graph if you like. I made it and I don't mind sharing.

 

[IAmAlwaysSerious]

Seems like a pretty pointless product nowadays (miniDSP and software parametric EQ possibilities to rival and outdo), and not particularly well implemented anyway.

I'm not sure I'd point to MiniDSP as a replacement for this.
As far as I can remember, the 2x4 HD is the closest to this thing in price (still more expensive), but it falls short on THD performance (noise too, I think) and it's magnitudes harder to use when actually listening to the music. It does have some pretty serious benefits, in situations where one wouldn't consider the Loki.

I'd say the similar things about software EQ, which is one of the reasons I don't use software EQ for playing games.

 

[Ajax]

EQ Software for Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS/iPadOS and Android.

Any suggestions are welcome. Post suggestions here. I will gather the details and add them. Thanks. :D This will be organized as results come in. @sweetchaos made a guide for PEQ filter data input and operation. For crossover software go here. Windows: AutoEQ four easy steps to make your...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Thank you Berwhale and others that replied to my request. The list is daunting!

Currently I have a very simple user friendly system - I drive my main speakers full range from the balanced out of SMSL SU8 DAC with a hypex 252 amp in between, and connect the RCA out to an active Velodyne 10" sub.

I set the cross over to 65Hz and "tune" the sound by ear using the Velodyne's remote to control its volume.

Sounds great!

 

[Robbo99999]

I'm not sure I'd point to MiniDSP as a replacement for this.
As far as I can remember, the 2x4 HD is the closest to this thing in price (still more expensive), but it falls short on THD performance (noise too, I think) and it's magnitudes harder to use when actually listening to the music. It does have some pretty serious benefits, in situations where one wouldn't consider the Loki.

I'd say the similar things about software EQ, which is one of the reasons I don't use software EQ for playing games.

If the tone controls on the reviewed product were better implemented then I guess it could be useful for some people. It's not something I would ever use even if it had great tone controls. For me anechoic flat speakers work well enough on all of my music / TV / movie content, and likewise my best Harman EQ's for my headphones do the same - I manage to tune them well enough that I never feel I need to reach for a tone control.

 

[PeteL]

If the tone controls on the reviewed product were better implemented then I guess it could be useful for some people. It's not something I would ever use even if it had great tone controls. For me anechoic flat speakers work well enough on all of my music / TV / movie content, and likewise my best Harman EQ's for my headphones do the same - I manage to tune them well enough that I never feel I need to reach for a tone control.

What make you say they are poorly implemented?

 

[IAmAlwaysSerious]

If the tone controls on the reviewed product were better implemented then I guess it could be useful for some people. It's not something I would ever use even if it had great tone controls. For me anechoic flat speakers work well enough on all of my music / TV / movie content, and likewise my best Harman EQ's for my headphones do the same - I manage to tune them well enough that I never feel I need to reach for a tone control.

I don't disagree with you there. My speakers are mostly decent stuff now and I try to keep music pretty neutral out of them (but experimenting with the lokius is fun sometimes). I just meant that I don't see any MiniDSP as a substitute for the loki, where one would use a loki.
And the lomi is certainly more usable to make some YouTube videos tolerable. Sometimes people have useful content with poor audio mastering. (This happened to me last night with a teardown video for some tablet)

And perfect is good. But for gaming, I can do better than perfect with a loki (or now my lokius). I just have to turn up the volume in a band where I might otherwise miss an audio cue. The very wide bandwidths on each knob makes this useful and less harmful to audio fidelity, I think.

 

[Robbo99999]

What make you say they are poorly implemented?

I think I'd prefer them to effect just the frequency areas on which they're focused rather than skewing the whole frequency response so you're more aware of the changes you're making, so for example it would be like just dialing in a low shelf boost on the bass knob as an idea. As an idea for what I think would work well would also be if manufacturers could offer a simple but totally linear tilt tone control through the whole frequency response, so if you imagine a perfectly straight seesaw style tone control that intersects in the middle at 1kHz or something - so you'd turn the knob anticlockwise to tilt it down, and you'd turn it clockwise to tilt it up. I think that would work really well if that is achievable with a manual tone control. You could also add in a seperate bass tone control just to put in a bass hump if you wanted, and and maybe a treble tone control to do the same kind of thing. I really like the idea of a totally linear tone control though that just creates that seesaw effect. I mean I don't need to use them, but for people that do, then I think that would work well. (I've used totally linear seesaw style tone controls in the digital realm, and it works well.)

Just some points from Amir that supports that it's not a particularly good implementation of tone controls, Amir says the following:
"I set all the controls at max and min which should just set the unit up for flat response and act as extra or negative gain. Instead of that, we get quite bit of deviation. This will make it hard to interpret what the unit is doing by looking at the controls."
and he says:
"Ideally with controls at center we would still have flat line but we don't."