Who can't listen without EQ anymore?

[Ropeburn]

If this is common ground, it's OK for me. For the two-band EQ in Germany it was said "Klangregler" which means "sound control" and/or "sound adjuster".

Another terrific word for it: Entzerrer - "de-distorter". As opposed to Verzerrer - "distorter".

It's technically correct, because a skewed frequency response is a form of distortion. Then you use an equaliser to make it equal = linear again. That's the origin of the word.

 

[Jiraya369]

eq changed my life, i cant stand harman or most of the other targets. The 1-8k gain is far too high for my ears, be it in ears or over ears. I've eq'd both to something that should measure a lot darker but in reality it sounds neutral to me, close to my eq'd speakers. HRTF is a bad thing!

and like, if i couldnt eq my speakers i dont think i'd have enjoyed em nearly as much. How do people enjoy any speaker without correcting the low frequencies at least??

 

[Ropeburn]

and like, if i couldnt eq my speakers i dont think i'd have enjoyed em nearly as much. How do people enjoy any speaker without correcting the low frequencies at least??

How? Happy coincidences between room, placement, and speaker behaviour.

Which aren't really coincidences when they're specifically designed to work well in exactly that environment, which they tend to be.

There's little more satisfying than buying speakers, putting them in your room with basic placement care, and getting a great sound right away. No fiddling necessary. Brain does the rest.

 

[Crook]

Use EQ for everything since being here (thanks), but I do have phones and IEM that can live without it. But with floorstanders, 2 subs and a hard room, bass is a real mess without EQ. I have a 20hz shelf, but after that it's cuts all the way to 200hz. Tight and controlled with, boomy and flabby without it. Once done, you can't go back imo.

 

[ChefBrunch]

I like having an EQ handy, I have a few of them. But if I can just quickly adjust the subs that works too....but sometimes you want to tweak it.

I have enough different gear though that I can get a lot of sounds just by switching it up....IDK I like EQ's , I have an older audiosource EQ11 if you just bump the whole spectrum 1 or 2 nothches and the total a notch or two it almost acts like an exciter or even tubes, it adds some noise and a little more dance and sizzle in the music, not something to do all the time but hey it actually sounds good sometimes.

 

[Jiraya369]

How? Happy coincidences between room, placement, and speaker behaviour.

Which aren't really coincidences when they're specifically designed to work well in exactly that environment, which they tend to be.

There's little more satisfying than buying speakers, putting them in your room with basic placement care, and getting a great sound right away. No fiddling necessary. Brain does the rest.

ugly, UGLY room modes made my low end messy! And in my listening position, i had nothing below 100 hz. So i had a feew resonances that "bloated" the low end and made it "muddy".

I don't have the most perfect room ever so it's expected ofc, the sound im getting with just simple eq by ear, is unreal. I can take care and get stands or something but it'd be too much of a hassle. I have em on desktops and i've eq'd stuff out.

Above 500hz the sound is absolutely pristine and i'm in love....

 

[FrantzM]

About EQ...

Accurate reproduction from the transducers to the listeners' ears , most often requires some EQ. Let's limit ourselves to speakers for now...

Below 500 Hz ( arbitrary threshold) the room dominates> What reaches the listener ear , from a perfect transducer, is profoundly mangled, distorted and or even be absent as not heard, even absent .. yes ...There is , IMO, no way to get good bass (anything below 500 Hz) without EQ and I would add a bit of Signal Processing... something that is not the forte of analog (Fact), it must be digital, thus DSP.

It is theoretically possible to build a perfect room where rooms modes are tamed, via contraptions that are enormous (Volume are in dozens of cubic feet or meters) and complicated. Such rooms are uncommon, I am not far from guaranteeing that for the most majority of audiophiles even those with unlimited resources this is rarely accomplished. Even for those with 6 figures (USD) systems ... for a non scientific survey, go to Audiogon, look for the mega (>100 K dollars systems and survey the Room Treatments ...

We, thus, all must EQ in the Bass.. what about the rest?

One topic rarely discussed is treble falloff.. This depends on many factors .. directivity for one plays a role in it. and I am not sure highs response fall off with distance is regularly or comprehensively measured... To compenasate, I find a bit of Bump around 6 to 9 KHz make instruments and , yes, voice more alive more real, for the lack of better terms.. It must be judicious: too much and everything become screech-y, but a little goes a long way: say centered at 7 Khz Gain o.5 dB and Q around 3~4? Works for me...

Another thing : After having experienced, Audyssey MultEQ-X and, especially @OCA scripts, so far I am at Acoustica... I will never listen to a non corrected audio system. Call it EQ if you will but .. there is no going back.

We have been lead in the wrong directions by the Audio Industry... Still today the costlier systems or components do not provide any way to correct the sound.. And in the HEA ( High End Audio ) they wear this as a badge of honor...

I can now understand why most High End Audio systems I have heard during my subjective years, rarely sounded right in retrospect: One can get to gaslighting oneself.. True!. You hear a great (mega dollars) system and cannot come to like the sound coming out of it .. Nah, it must be you..
not saying that some of these didn't sound good or right, but disappointment was more common that elation ...

 

[Ropeburn]

ugly, UGLY room modes made my low end messy! And in my listening position, i had nothing below 100 hz. So i had a feew resonances that "bloated" the low end and made it "muddy".

I don't have the most perfect room ever so it's expected ofc, the sound im getting with just simple eq by ear, is unreal. I can take care and get stands or something but it'd be too much of a hassle. I have em on desktops and i've eq'd stuff out.

Above 500hz the sound is absolutely pristine and i'm in love....

That's what I mean. I have the exact opposite: lucky room node exactly at listening position (and nowhere else lol). Emphasises subbass, compensating for natural speaker rolloff. There are audible ups and downs in the bass response below 200Hz, but nothing bad. Not perfect by any means, but easily good enough to not bother any further.

It's not a coincidence because the room is very average size, just what designers are aiming for.

If it wasn't so lucky, I'd have to use EQ just like you. Gladly I don't.

 

[JohnnyNG]

It's technically correct, because a skewed frequency response is a form of distortion. Then you use an equaliser to make it equal = linear again. That's the origin of the word.

It's always so silly when someone claims to avoid EQ/tone controls since they want to hear things "as the artist intended". Duh.

 

[Ropeburn]

It's always so silly when someone claims to avoid EQ/tone controls since they want to hear things "as the artist intended". Duh.

I'm a simple man, I avoid EQ because it's already good enough as it is. Guess I'm easy to satisfy. I'm pretty sure if I measured, the graph would look rather horrible.

And for my own music, it gets even easier. I always listen exactly as the artist intended, because

 

[JohnnyNG]

I'm a simple man, I avoid EQ because it's already good enough as it is.

Lucky! I'd gotten somewhat used to the Everest-sized ~40Hz mode at my seat but things are much better now even if a blues in E doesn't resolve quite as convincingly.

I don't use EQ/DSP above 500Hz but since it's a 4-way active setup I do have broad control over the mid and high levels as well as a variable baffle step correction to add a gentle low pass up high.

 

[Ropeburn]

Lucky! I'd gotten somewhat used to the Everest-sized ~40Hz mode at my seat but things are much better now even if a blues in E doesn't resolve quite as convincingly.

I don't use EQ/DSP above 500Hz but since it's a 4-way active setup I do have broad control over the mid and high levels as well as a variable baffle step correction to add a gentle low pass up high.

Oh man, fat mode at 40 Hz... exactly where all the power is. Haha!

There definitely are several peaks and dips here, audibly so - means it must be 6dB variation or more. Typical room behaviour. Still isn't bad at all to my ears, as said I'm easy to satisfy. Power and cleanliness have much higher priority.

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The bass notes in that one definitely vary in volume, but in the signal they don't. But I don't care, it's still good enough. There's a lot of masking in the widest sense going on anyway. String layers, and especially the memory of how it felt making that. At some point, it's all about the music itself, and the playback system becomes irrelevant psychologically, as long as it's good enough to get out of the way. Luckily, that point for me is easy and cheap to achieve.

 

[wwenze]

Nowadays when I compare speakers, I EQ them to sound identical first.

 

[Joe Smith]

Me! I sometimes use some tuning, but am just as happy without it. I like to be able to adjust with a "loudness" curve or similar when listening at very low levels, that is useful to me. But mostly, I just like the sound of my speakers as they present.

 

[Snarfie]

Didn't listen for around 15 years because of bad room modes in new house than i switch on DSP room correction (a full correction) an fun was back quite remarkable.

 

[WXfreak]

One button EQ for when you don't want to listen at concert levels as the artist intended.

 

[MattHooper]

I use EQ all the time in my POST PRODUCTION work.

But in my home two channel audio system, I don’t use it at all.

I had a digital parametric EQ in my system for something like 20 years and I used it so rarely that I finally sold it a few years ago.

I choose my system and set it up such that the vast majority of content I play sounds pleasing to me. (My hunch with no proof is that my CJ tube amps have played a role in this through the years).

So if everything is sounding great I have no need to want to fiddle more with EQ.

When I fiddle it tends to be playing with aspects that generally can’t be done strictly with EQ - playing with speaker positioning and altering room acoustics. But it’s rarely out of dissatisfaction simply out of having fun and with curiosity. My goal of having a system in which I enjoy virtually everything I play through it has been reached and I don’t care to introduce additional technology that I would rarely touch. (similar reason to why I got rid of my subwoofers, crossover, DSP, etc..)

 

[Mean & Green]

I’ve always avoided buying pre amps that don’t have any form of tone controls. I always found it absurd that the hifi journalists and the audiophile cult from the 80s all the way through to now, claim that this is a good thing.

In my main system which is primarily physical media sourced and not feed from software driven tech, I could not be without my subwoofer, my pre amps bass control and also the addition of my Schiit Loki for the occasional tracks where the presence region is just too intense for me.

However I do mostly listen with all controls bypassed and only activate them for the material I feel needs some help, the subwoofer is always on and adding the depth I want to the sound though, it has its own EQ which is always active.

 

[pablolie]

EQ is kinda nice, I like it, but I can perfectly live without it simply because I never keep any gear I *must* EQ in order to tolerate it.

 

[MattHooper]

EQ is kinda nice, I like it, but I can perfectly live without it simply because I never keep any gear I *must* EQ in order to tolerate it.

That’s a perfect way of putting it. Same here.