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What EQ settings do you use for HeK v2?

akane

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~Hello! I'm typical broke college student who has gone down deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole in the last 5 years. Scraping together earnings from part times, I've been slowly upgrading everything over time. Today I'm running an (non-stealth) He1000 V2 with a Sony TA-ZH1ES and tidal.
For a majority of the time I owned this unit, I was very satisfied, but I was also listening to almost exclusively classical music. I noticed recently that I was avoiding violin concertos subconsciously and made an effort to listen to more treble-heavy music and other genres that led me to feel that sometimes there was something missing.
I feel that sometimes vocals (both male and female) feel farther away than on other cans I've owned, and that sometimes the sound is almost "artificial" or "metallic". I would say my preferences align with the mellow/warm-ish/dark treble presented by the ZH1ES (apologys for non-technical language), but I am struggling to EQ more intimate vocals without losing bass/mid definition. I also really like crispy drums and I've found that sometimes it doesn't feel as "punchy" as I would like.
Here are my current EQ settings, which are sort of based on a previous forum discussion regarding the HeK Stealth that I tweaked until I was partially satisfied.
Preamp: -3.41 dB
Filter: ON LSC Fc 25 Hz Gain 3.45 dB Q 0.5
Filter: ON LSC Fc 105 Hz Gain 4.1 dB Q 0.71
Filter: ON PK Fc 220 Hz Gain -1.95 dB Q 1.15
Filter: ON PK Fc 600 Hz Gain 0.8 dB Q 2.1
Filter: ON PK Fc 1000 Hz Gain -0.45 dB Q 3
Filter: ON PK Fc 1800 Hz Gain 3.42 dB Q 2.42
Filter: ON PK Fc 5000 Hz Gain -0.85 dB Q 5
Filter: ON PK Fc 7900 Hz Gain -1.3 dB Q 4.62

*I am using high gain - I think it helps with some of the aforementioned issues a bit.
Curiously, following Oratory's infos and using autoEQ and other online measurements I noticed that a lot of Harman/target-based EQ for this setup sound somewhat unnatural, which was strange because for many of my previous setups just following harman was good enough.
If anyone has any suggestions for EQ settings/extra filters or any general suggestions (cables, etc.) on how to make this setup sound better, I would greatly appreciate. And if anyone has an HeKV2 and could share their personal EQ settings I would be delighted. Apology if my English isn't great.
Also would love any thoughts on my setup ^-^
~Thank you so much!
 
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IAtaman

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Hello and welcome!

I did measure them on my head and EQed them to match the measurements of HD600.

This is the EQ I end up with based on that:
Preamp: -5.5dB
Filter 1: ON HSC Fc 70 Hz Gain 3 dB Q 0.7
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 200 Hz Gain -1 dB Q 1
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 2000 Hz Gain 7.5 dB Q 0.8
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 3400 Hz Gain -7 dB Q 1.4
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 3300 Hz Gain -3 dB Q 3
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 6000 Hz Gain -2 dB Q 0.7

EQ is done by eye and my measurements are totally unscientific and unreliable so take these with a large pinch of salt please.

And here are the graphs for reference.

1705599445904.png
 
Last edited:
OP
akane

akane

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Hello and welcome!

I did measure them on my head and EQed them to match the measurements of HD600.

This is the EQ I end up with based on that:


EQ is done by eye and my measurements are totally unscientific and unreliable so take these with a large pinch of salt please.

And here are the graphs for reference.

View attachment 342886
Amazing. I will give it a listen tonight!
 
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