To EQ Or Not To EQ, that’s the question.

[Xen560]

I use EQ to get bass boost mainly at 60Hz at Q0.5 with EQ apo, including a treble boost and taming the 2 - 3k area a bit, for my ER4XR.

 

[AnalogSteph]

I must say I am quite pleased with the effect of some extended bass on the trusty Tascam VL-X5s (as derived from measurements)... less than an octave might not sound that much, but I guess when your speakers' frequency response has a habit of dropping rapidly below 100 Hz, every bit matters. I decided to roll it off below 80 Hz so level loss isn't too extreme... even so, the difference in bass quality and quantity is very noticeable, which had been one of the few areas where I found their performance really lacking even by my relatively modest standards. (It was a good opportunity to increase their input gain a bit, too. That still was set very low from way back when I had some ground loop issues, and I was often finding myself 10 dB below maximum at regular, not overly high listening volumes lately. Hiss is still inaudible at >10 cm from the tweeter, I can definitely live with that.) Never mind the other corrections, that's room stuff.

 

[Phronesis]

With my KEF LS50 wireless speakers, I do some basic EQ to suit the room because it's easy to do it with the app, though the app offers limited adjustment parameters.

With headphones, I don't bother with EQ because, to my ears, there's a lot of variability in the EQ tracks would need, so it would be like chasing a frequently moving target. Instead, I just use headphones which provide me with a tonal balance I like enough, then I let my ears/brain adapt from there. But that does leave some tracks which don't sound good enough with any of my headphones.

 

[Patrick1958]

Teufel Aureol Real Z.
To my knowledge was only avaible in Europe, discontinued now.

 

[Patrick1958]

Updated Hifiman HE400s (slight change in lower and upper range), Hifiman HE400i and Hifiman HE560 (slight change in upper level to give it a bit more bite)

 

[Krunok]

There’s no jeopardy in trying a bit of EQ , you can try it and if you don’t like it don’t use it. Personally Iv found it fun on my hifi but ultimately distracting but do use it for headphones and my JBL boombox .

It’s entirely a personal preference so I’d not give a fig about what anyone else thinks.

I find it surprising that your experience with Room EQ was distracting? What exactly did you find distracting?

Btw, have you verified with additional measurement that your speakers really had linear response with EQ active?

 

[Patrick1958]

Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro (elevated sub bass, treble peak decreased).
Forgot to mention these settings can be used for both the light and dark grey earpads. Dark grey pads will have slighter less bass extension.
Added a 2nd gen curve, lowered the Bass extensions by about 1 db.

 

[bravomail]

Interesting thread and thanks for sharing EQ profiles! One question I have is - why would you apply roomEQ for headphones?

 

[andreasmaaan]

Interesting thread and thanks for sharing EQ profiles! One question I have is - why would you apply roomEQ for headphones?

Many believe that the ideal curve for a headphone should correspond to that of an excellent pair of speakers in a well-treated room. That's obviously a pretty vague definition, but this is usually taken to mean the equivalent of a downward-tilted amplitude response, such that the low bass is roughly 10dB higher in level than the high treble. Harman's research on listener preferences supported this conclusion.

 

[Patrick1958]

Interesting thread and thanks for sharing EQ profiles! One question I have is - why would you apply roomEQ for headphones?

Some headphones have elevated treble peaks (beyerdynamic is well known for this other brands to a lesser degree, never the less you would be surprised how much). This will cause listening fatigue, lots of people steer away from Beyers because of the treble peak. Adjusting low bass for a more fun factor like @andreasmaaan described. Also known as the Harman curve.

 

[pwjazz]

Some headphones have elevated treble peaks (beyerdynamic is well known for this other brands to a lesser degree, never the less you would be surprised how much). This will cause listening fatigue, lots of people steer away from Beyers because of the treble peak. Adjusting low bass for a more fun factor like @andreasmaaan described. Also known as the Harmon curve.

One problem with treble peaks is that they're often due to the driver ringing at a certain frequency. Reducing the peak with EQ reduces the overall level but doesn't fix the ringing, in which case some listener fatigue may remain (from personal experience, no data to back this up).

 

[Patrick1958]

I've been listening to the Sennheiser HD600 for about a month intensively and finally created a custom EQ for Foobar2000.
To my ears the HD600 sounds much better than the HD650. That's with my ears and my setup (dac/amp). No statement whatsoever that the HD600 is superior compared to the HD650 or others in the lineup.
I own the Sennheiser HD58X, HD600, HD650 and the HD660s.
In order of listening preference :
- HD600
- HD58X
- HD660s
- HD650.

 

[Patrick1958]

The below zip files are previously posted EQ setting slightly altered. The Beyerdynamics in mainly the treble department, the Hifimans also in treble department and some lower end adjustments. The Sennheisers some more fine tunings over all frequencies.

 

[daftcombo]

You can find a lot of headphones convolution corrections on this Github project.
https://github.com/ShanonPearce/ASH-IR-Dataset/tree/master/HpCFs

To use it in Foobar, dowload Resampler (SoX) and Convolver.
In JRiver, just go in the Convolution panel.

 

[Veri]

Or this of course https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq

HeSuVi (headphone surround virtualisation) also has autoEQ embedded I believe https://sourceforge.net/projects/hesuvi/

 

[Sekenenz]

You can find a lot of headphones convolution corrections on this Github project.
https://github.com/ShanonPearce/ASH-IR-Dataset/tree/master/HpCFs

Or this of course https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq

Tried some of these filters... I'm using a convolution profile in addition to a slight crossfeed and my beyer are reborn.

(thanks for the links)

 

[soundwave76]

Yes, absolutelly use EQ for both headphones and speakers for room correction. DSP and EQ are the future of audio in my opinion.

 

[BillG]

I've been using EQ ever since I owned my first stereo as teen: my system, my music, my room, and my preference as to how I want it to sound for my enjoyment. And some purist opinions about that? Well, they can go f*... You get the idea!

 

[BeatleBob5]

I use manual EQ since I listen to CDs. I alternate between a JDS Labs Subjective3 and the Schiit Loki. I adjust the bass, midrange & treble according to the headphone & amplifier combination I'm using. I even combine an EQ with my vintage Kenwood KA-8006 integrated amp, 70wpc [1974] which also has tone control and switches.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

with speakers, I play around with EQ on occasion for room correction but I think my room is reasonably good for sound and more often than not I just leave the EQ flat.

Headphones, never bother with it. I look for headphones that offer balanced sound that suits my taste. There's so many models available at every price point...I just feel like instead of spending $300 on a certain model and then EQing it to sound like a different $300 headphone I'd rather just buy the $300 headphone that sounds the way I want it to ootb...