What headphone EQ settings are you using?

[threni]

I've spent some time reading about, then fiddling with, EQ settings for my headphones. What I'm personally after is compensating for any objective problems with the headphones, then seasoning to taste with - especially - "bass and treble". I have no way to do this properly so I have a playlist of edge-case/problematic/favourite tracks which I listen to for a while after any change. I think my numbers have settled down now but it's possible that with a completely different set of numbers I might discover I've gone down the wrong path!

I'm interested to know specifically what settings people are using with my headphones but that's a little selfish so maybe people could just post their settings and state which headphones/software they're using. I use mainly moOde so I only have peak filters available, meaning you can't generally use Oratory figures directly as he uses shelf.

Sennheiser HD 660S / moOde 7.6.1 (PEQ)

 

[staticV3]

My recommendation: collect every credible 660S measurement that you can find, build multi-band GEQs using AutoEQ, compare directly using EQApo, then design PEQ based on your favorite.

I can assist in case you're interested.

 

[Zensō]

I use Oratory1990’s settings, then make subtle adjustments to taste. For EQ I’m running FabFilter Pro-Q3 within SoundSource. My current headphones are Sennheiser HD800S, 660S, and Beyerdynamic DT1990 Pro.

 

[digitalfrost]

I use convolution, but if I were to use a parametric EQ my settings would be:

Preamp: -4.8 dB
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 25 Hz Gain -17.7 dB Q 1.79
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 35 Hz Gain 12.3 dB Q 2.76
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 191 Hz Gain -0.2 dB Q 1.73
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 356 Hz Gain 1.9 dB Q 1.94
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 611 Hz Gain 0.9 dB Q 1.97
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 755 Hz Gain 0.7 dB Q 3.42
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 838 Hz Gain 3.4 dB Q 0.55
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 1152 Hz Gain -1.9 dB Q 2.14
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 18992 Hz Gain -10.0 dB Q 0.10
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 19504 Hz Gain -10.0 dB Q 0.48

This is for DT990.

 

[Berwhale]

Using Oratory's HD660S settings here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/s4isno09gt20ozf/Sennheiser HD660S.pdf?dl=0

In PEACE/eAPO here:

I have played around with the preference tweaks suggested by Oratory, but I found the default generally suited me fine for a wide range of music. I plan to experiment more when I have more time to do so.

 

[threni]

I use Oratory1990’s settings, then make subtle adjustments to taste. For EQ I’m running FabFilter Pro-Q3 within SoundSource. My current headphones are Sennheiser HD800S, 660S, and Beyerdynamic DT1990 Pro.

Please post your numbers!

 

[Zensō]

Please post your numbers!

Sennheiser HD800S.pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Sennheiser HD660S.pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Beyerdynamic DT1990 (Balanced Earpads).pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Beyerdynamic DT1990 (Analytic Earpads).pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[threni]

My recommendation: collect every credible 660S measurement that you can find, build multi-band GEQs using AutoEQ, compare directly using EQApo, then design PEQ based on your favorite.

I can assist in case you're interested.

Thanks. I'll investigate that. I only really use Linux usually. I suppose I could borrow a Windows laptop if I had to. That's part of the problem - even making tiny tweaks to a single setting in moOde is painful; you type a new number (no UI for visualising Q/gain and seeing how they interact with nearby frequency changes) and click save, wait for the website to take and process that change then the music stops for a few seconds and then continues. No on-the-fly changes. And that's just a single setting. Switching between saved presets takes longer and restarts the track from the beginning.

I did spot AutoEq. In fact, I started there because originally I saw no peak-only Oratory settings. I just used the numbers from github though - I didn't process any numbers.

 

[threni]

Sennheiser HD800S.pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Sennheiser HD660S.pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Beyerdynamic DT1990 (Balanced Earpads).pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Beyerdynamic DT1990 (Analytic Earpads).pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Thanks. Attached are Oratory's HD 660S settings for moOde (peak-only filters)

 

[threni]

Using Oratory's HD660S settings here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/s4isno09gt20ozf/Sennheiser HD660S.pdf?dl=0

In PEACE/eAPO here:

View attachment 191718

I have played around with the preference tweaks suggested by Oratory, but I found the default generally suited me fine for a wide range of music. I plan to experiment more when I have more time to do so.

Thanks. It's looking like I need a Windows VM!

 

[freemansteve]

The important thing to do is have phones are a reasonable compromise for the range of recordings you play. If not, the danger is "pointless fiddling" rather than enjoying the music. I never bother with tone/eq at all.

Mind you, having said that, it doesn't seem to me to be a stretch for your FLAC/MP3 etc to be tagged by you with an "EQ profile" field, per track and/or per album and then have the playback software pull in that profile - or indeed a list of actual frequency band settings - and apply it at the point of playback - ReplayGain style if you like.

Maybe this has already been implemented, but I never noticed it!....

Patent pending!

 

[Berwhale]

I did spot AutoEq. In fact, I started there because originally I saw no peak-only Oratory settings. I just used the numbers from github though - I didn't process any numbers.

Hopefully you already understand that the EQ generated by AutoEQ from Oratory's measurements, are not the same as Oratory's PEQ settings that he develops himself... https://www.reddit.com/r/oratory199...is_list_different_to_the_github_.2F_autoeq.3F

I found that I preferred Oratory's settings over the ones generated by AutoEQ and have stuck with those (although there wasn't a lot of science behind my preference, I didn't try to level match or test blind).

 

[staticV3]

I found that oratory's hand-made, bespoke presets sound pretty awful about as often as any machine-generated preset on AutoEQ.
My way to EQ goodness is to just try 'em all.

 

[threni]

Has anyone ever bothered to test the same PEQ settings on different apps and see if they produce the same effect? If I'm using some Windows app which handled the equalisation as well as providing an interface for it there's the change that it'll have some internal settings/constants which won't be available to me when I just enter the global gain and per-band gain/Q values.

 

[threni]

Hopefully you already understand that the EQ generated by AutoEQ from Oratory's measurements, are not the same as Oratory's PEQ settings that he develops himself... https://www.reddit.com/r/oratory199...is_list_different_to_the_github_.2F_autoeq.3F

I found that I preferred Oratory's settings over the ones generated by AutoEQ and have stuck with those (although there wasn't a lot of science behind my preference, I didn't try to level match or test blind).

I wasted some time trying to get PulseEffects working on my Ubuntu/Chromebook boxes before remembering how much I really didn't enjoy trying to get anything related to mixers/filters/EQ working on Linux.

So I dragged my daughter's Windows laptop into my room and played around with Peace/eApo and found that I quite like your config (with a touch more high frequency). Then I wasted some time trying to turn your config into the peak-only flavour moOde supports, and failed, obviously.

This inspired me to finally experiment with CamillaDSP which turned out to be not so hard to get working after all. It supports your non-peak-only filters, and it also lets you switch configs on the fly so it's much, much more pleasant to a/b them.

So thanks for that!

 

[Zensō]

Has anyone ever bothered to test the same PEQ settings on different apps and see if they produce the same effect? If I'm using some Windows app which handled the equalisation as well as providing an interface for it there's the change that it'll have some internal settings/constants which won't be available to me when I just enter the global gain and per-band gain/Q values.

Not all PEQs are created equal. For example, Pro-Q3 requires multiplying the Q values by 1.41 to match the source.

 

[threni]

Attached are my CamiilaDSP settings for moOde. They've mostly settled down but I'm still up for comparing with others. One thing I've noticed about switching between two configs is you mostly notice the difference, and specifically you "miss" whatever frequencies you've reduced!

 

[freemansteve]

For me, a neat thing would be to be able to embed a few "EQ" settings, per track, into a file's tags.
It really would only need a small tag, byte-wise. Just define say a dozen or so f-points, and a +/- dB value for each.
You could have multiple profiles, say 6, in each track that a media player could read and pass as values to an EQ engine, for example "main speakers", "Headphones #1", "IEM #1" etc. The values could be 'block written' by say, the excellent MP3Tag with a plugin.

I don't currently EQ at all, even though my phones are too trebley - I'd end up constantly fiddling rather than listening, for different albums/bands/genres etc....

Of course, there is no reason (bar a bit of software) why my all-in-one (Linux-based Evo) couldn't automatically apply an internally-preset EQ based on whether the output was set to speakers or phones - that'd be a start.....

 

[threni]

Last one for a bit - seems to have settled. (You have to listen to a lost of music to make sure you've not gone too far in one direction or another!)

 

[ADU]

You might also have a look at the graphs I just posted here, threni, for some general ideas on how/where to make some EQ adjustments to the HD 660S...

Eq settings for hd660s (HELP)

Hello, I am new to being an audiophile. I listen to rock, hiphop and some opera type music/violins and some games, i love y headphones. But i read eqs make stuff better. Anyone got good software with eq values to give outstanding soundstage/imaging or anything to make headphones even better...

www.audiosciencereview.com

You can also pick your own set of headphones to use as a general guide or reference for a more accurate response, rather than using the ones I've chosen for the above example with Oratory's graphing tool.