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

[Westsounds]

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!

This!

And why wouldn’t you, it’s you that has to listen to it. If it’s screaming because of the bare walls room, bad component match, or the speakers are just badly tuned, why wouldn’t you use an EQ to put it right. It’s what they do at live events with tone controls and EQ. Think everyone should have one. Purist is a complete con, all amps without tone controls have their own tuning anyway, it’s not as if it’s this linear signal that pure as the source sound if you’ve got a direct amp.

 

[korps]

Never had any success with EQ. At the end of the day you can't alter physics with software.

 

[DVDdoug]

Never had any success with EQ.

OK.

At the end of the day you can't alter physics with software.

Sure you can!!! Electrical signals and soundwaves are "physics".

Amir almost always recommends at least SOME EQ on all of the speakers & headphones he reviews here. It improves the measurements and the sound (to his trained and experienced ears.)

Of course there are limitations and if you have a small speaker you can't boost the bass with EQ to get bass you feel in your body. And similarly, some headphones distort if you boost the bass too much. But EQ can do lots of good (or bad). And a lot of recordings are "imperfect" too.

 

[Flaesh]

This is about the tenth time I've stumbled across the title of this thread. Even though it's not about room acoustics or speakers.

 

[olds1959special]

I agree that EQ can help but sometimes it’s not worth running the software and dealing with the settings and your brain can get used to the issues if they are minor. Also sometimes there can be glitches and latency.

 

[win]

I changed the physics of my living room / listening room with EQ.

 

[Jcrow]

EQ is pretty important for me. I dunno why EQ is so controversial in some circles. Also, seems odd that a lot of reviewers don't factor in EQ into their reviews. I recently got a Topping DX5ii, and reviewers often mention the PEQ function but don't really single it out as a critical feature. I noticed this for a lot of other DACs and such. For me, getting PEQ in a DAC at this price point (along with the other features) is really impressive, but I felt it's underappreciated by a lot of the 'audiophile' reviewers.

 

[DVDdoug]

I dunno why EQ is so controversial in some circles,

Back in the analog days I felt guilty like I was cheating or I felt like my system was inadequate if I had to use tone controls or EQ. I was probably reading too many hi-fi magazines! The weird thing was, I knew most of the problem was the analog records themselves because there were a few good sounding ones. And in reality, most of my life I had slightly wimpy woofers and even with EQ they didn't "thump" even with bass boost.

 

[Jcrow]

Back in the analog days I felt guilty like I was cheating or I felt like my system was inadequate if I had to use tone controls or EQ.

My first ‘hi-fi’ system that I got for my 16th bday was a Sony system that came with 5-cd changer and a sub. I always turned on what they termed “X-bass boost”. So I grew up with too much bass haha (crap bass at that).
Interesting hearing anecdotes about the different tech we each grew up with.
Going back to EQ, though, there definitely seems to be a psychological barrier for a lot of people not wanting to use EQ. Maybe it’s understandable if you just dropped $1k on some headphones or something and don’t want to admit they need some ‘help’. Conversely, if you’ve got cheap gear one might feel it’s inadequate even with the help of EQ, and therefore be focussed on upgrading the gear to get the ‘right’ sound.

 

[Sal1950]

Never had any success with EQ. At the end of the day you can't alter physics with software.

 

[Westsounds]

EQ changes sound and you can do wonders with it. You can make small speakers sound bigger and fuller within their limits. You can also tame the extremes of big speakers. You can also tune things to sound right. Sound waves are physics and you are altering it.

 

[Snarfie]

Back in the analog days I felt guilty like I was cheating or I felt like my system was inadequate if I had to use tone controls or EQ. I was probably reading too many hi-fi magazines! The weird thing was, I knew most of the problem was the analog records themselves because there were a few good sounding ones. And in reality, most of my life I had slightly wimpy woofers and even with EQ they didn't "thump" even with bass boost.

I’m 66 and share a similar view on EQ, which in the past was simply called loudness or tone control (for a obvious purpose). Brands like Quad often avoided tone controls, overlooking the fact that most listening rooms are acoustically poor.

In the late ’80s I was lucky enough to life in an almost ideal listening environment, where neutral recordings sounded wonderful. But after moving in 2000 to a far worse acoustic space, I lost the joy of listening for about 12 years. Only when I applied DSP room correction did I get that “near perfect” sound back using nothing more than a 2014 Lenovo Thinkpad laptop with an i5 processor. That technology brought back my passion for music and even led me to start remixing tracks as a hobby with a DAW.

I believe that years of listening to distorted or incomplete sound conditions us not to notice what’s missing like tight bass, the tonal differences between pianos (Steinway vs. Bösendorfer), or even the character of a Telecaster vs. Stratocaster. Without proper acoustics, reverb, soundstage and imaging are practically absent. Many people end up chasing new gear to resolve their subconscious problem but in reality the biggest issue, by far, is the room itself which can be solved effectively with DSP in many cases i presume.

I guess for some it is difficult to get rid of their addiction to listening in an exceptionally bad acoustic environment (thinking it should sound like that) not knowing how it was actually intended/could sound.

 

[Westsounds]

I believe marketing and hifi magazines have messed with our heads and given us a false sense of what hifi should be. Direct sound amplifiers with no tone controls but equilazers have fallen from grace when really they are an essential part of it. But eq's would stop a lot of box swapping as well and in effect sales because people continually swapping is going around the houses so to speak equilazing, but doing it with equipment rather than a couple of simple sliders. Everything is equilazed, probably a high percentage of the music you listen to is, especially main stream music. And what's wrong with doing it again one more time to make it more enjoyable or palatable to the end user. You were relying on some sound guy anyway who may have totally different hearing to you anyway or preference or worse have no clue what they were doing, so you are at the mercy of that. Thankfully these days you don't even have to buy an equalizer either, most people stream and you can do it infinitely in software. So all those direct line amplifier they sold us turned out to be a great thing after all.

 

[Westsounds]

I’m 66 and share a similar view on EQ, which in the past was simply called loudness or tone control. Brands like Quad often avoided tone controls, overlooking the fact that most listening rooms are acoustically poor.

In the late ’80s I was lucky enough to live in an almost ideal listening environment, where neutral recordings sounded wonderful. But after moving in 2000 to a far worse acoustic space, I lost the joy of listening for about 12 years. Only when I applied DSP room correction did I get that “near perfect” sound back using nothing more than a 2014 Lenovo laptop with an i5 processor. That technology brought back my passion for music and even led me to start remixing tracks as a hobby with a DAW.

I believe that years of listening to distorted or incomplete sound conditions us not to notice what’s missing like tight bass, the tonal differences between pianos (Steinway vs. Bösendorfer), or even the character of a Telecaster vs. Stratocaster. Without proper acoustics, reverb, soundstage and imaging are practically absent. Many people end up chasing new gear to resolve their subconscious problem but in reality the biggest issue, by far, is the room itself which can be solved effectively with DSP in many cases i presume.

I guess for some it is difficult to get rid of their addiction to listening in an exceptionally bad acoustic environment (thinking it should sound like that) not knowing how it was actually intended/could sound.

It's true and modern sound environments and tight spaces can make some of the worse listening environments. Modern houses usually have shiny surfaces, plain plastered walls, laminate flooring, plain ceilings, very few soft furnishings or curtains which may look beautiful and like Scandinavian show houses but acoustics are terrible as they're all reflective acoustic surfaces. Nothing gets absorbed so eq is not only needed it's essential. Plus it's difficult to get equipment to match perfectly synergistically, while suiting the listening space as well. EQ solves most of it. There's only so much you can do but that may surprise you too. You often see these blurry photos and think there's no way they can do anything with that, and low and behold some designers manipulate it and bring it back to life in full vibrancy. And with AI now getting more advanced it's often unbelievable what can be done. Sound's no different.

 

[Snarfie]

It's true and modern sound environments and tight spaces can make some of the worse listening environments. Modern houses usually have shiny surfaces, plain plastered walls, laminate flooring, plain ceilings, very few soft furnishings or curtains which may look beautiful and like Scandinavian show houses but acoustics are terrible as they're all reflective acoustic surfaces. Nothing gets absorbed so eq is not only needed it's essential. Plus it's difficult to get equipment to match perfectly synergistically, while suiting the listening space as well. EQ solves most of it. There's only so much you can do but that may surprise you too. You often see these blurry photos and think there's no way they can do anything with that, and low and behold some designers manipulate it and bring it back to life in full vibrancy. And with AI now getting more advanced it's often unbelievable what can be done. Sound's no different.

Another important matter to consider is
your source material LP, CD, high Res Files etc that mostly are constructed in a proffesionals Studio Controll Room with a investment ratio by average 30% Gear 70% Room treatment (canceling trafick tremors, reflections, reverb so phase coherent time alignt behaviour etc etc) that could run in the millions.

So realistically, what do we expect? That our home setup will sound like that you can tweak with your gear forever ?

 

[Miniyouuuu]

Sub 150hz problems (room modes) are difficult to solve without EQ. When you have play with location of speakers, toe in/out, furniture or absortion/difussion, your last chance is EQ. But EQ implements phase variations that could affect your experience.

Higher than 500hz EQ is more sensible to my ears. I would use large Q filters or low pass filters such as tone controls, but be careful to try to correct any minimum variance in frequency to achieve flat response.

Higher than 5000hz EQ is non sense. Any little movement in your head affect completely to these frequencies behavior.

in my case 100% agree to improve low 150hz frequency issues

 

[korps]

EQ changes sound and you can do wonders with it. You can make small speakers sound bigger and fuller within their limits.

 

[Westsounds]

Why is this so facepalm then audiophile professor korps?

 

[Jcrow]

Why is this so facepalm then audiophile professor korps?

Yeah I didn’t understand the facepalm either because I thought what you said was fairly reasonable

 

[Westsounds]

I get it looking at what's been posted previously by this member, it's like telling someone their religion doesn't exist. People get hoodwinked by magazine articles, fancy reviews, price tags and kudos of brands when this hobby is simple audio science. You can fluff it up all you like with nonsense but there's only so much frequency that can come through equipment and that one can hear. You can easily now with digital tinker with those frequencies without adding any distortion, and completely transform the sound. You can even add some fullness to thin sounding small speakers, within their design limits, provided you don't drive them too loud. BBC monitors have been doing this for years anyway with their inbuilt crossover mid bass hump. All speakers can be tweaked though it doesn't ruin their sound, it enhances it. And if the recording is crap or has limitations (many are) its a necessity not an option.