Why do so many recording sound bright or "harsh"?

[majingotan]

All quite true. A large part of the reason I haven't listened to vinyl for close to 30 years now.

I just find that I need to spend way more on a vinyl setup to sound as good as digital for 1/10 of the price. Cheap vinyl setup = tinny sound in my experience regardless on how good the pressings were made

 

[Snarfie]

Y

One of these days, as a Foobar2000 user, I really ought to try MathAudio Room EQ. First I need to get a miniDSP UMIK-1.

But I'm not sure about EQ'ing from the listening position. Advice I've received in the past is to only correct for bass resonances and inherent speaker peaks & dips as determined in the near-field. (This in effect seems to be how Amir does it when evaluating speakers, though maybe I have that wrong.)

With the combo foobar & mathaudio you can only make a fullrange measurment with the vertical slider you can move the horizontale target curve to any position that sounds good for you. You can even draw a suitable target curve in any form you want.

 

[andymok]

Because poorly designed mixing rooms / monitor system cancelled out HF due to phasing issues

 

[RayDunzl]

But I'm not sure about EQ'ing from the listening position.

I do.

That's where I "listen".

Advice I've received in the past is to only correct for bass resonances and inherent speaker peaks & dips as determined in the near-field.

I tend to smash the whole thing flat across the board,



The bass gets the most attention, of course.

That makes the soundwave at the listening position most closely resemble the soundwave in the recording, which, when considered as a goal for the modification, makes me think "Why not?"

Listening position, left and right channels from CD.

(This in effect seems to be how Amir does it when evaluating speakers, though maybe I have that wrong.)

He's not me.

He's not you either.

Take advice and filter as you please for your own use.

 

[Feanor]

I do.

That's where I "listen".



I tend to smash the whole thing flat across the board,

View attachment 81332

The bass gets the most attention, of course.

That makes the soundwave at the listening position most closely resemble the soundwave in the recording, which, when considered as a goal for the modification, makes me think "Why not?"

Listening position, left and right channels from CD.

View attachment 81330



He's not me.

He's not you either.

Take advice and filter as you please for your own use.

I'm not taking an adamant position on whether one ought to EQ form the listening position OR for bass resonances and inherent speaker irregularities. However an expert audio engineer did once recommend the latter to me but I'm not saying that he was necessarily right.

The concept is that maximum transparency and soundstage is maintained with the bass + inherent speaker curve corrections only. The idea is that the room response includes many reflections that differ depending on frequency; correcting for the sum of these will tend to loose those desirable qualities.

 

[richard12511]

That makes the soundwave at the listening position most closely resemble the soundwave in the recording, which, when considered as a goal for the modification, makes me think "Why not?"
.

I was under the impression that this is not true. The soundwave that most closely resembles the sound in the recording is a ~-10dB rolloff from 20Hz-20kHz(depending on listening distance). Doesn't the brain automatically compensate for distance by adding treble gain? So, by eq'ing it flat at the listening position, your brain is still doing that compensation, so you're hearing a sound that's ~10dB hot in the treble?

My understanding is that if you're intent is to hear the sound that most closely resembles the recording, you should EQ the speaker itself flat, which will then result in a treble roll off(that depends on distance) at the listening position.

I'm assuming you've tried both, and you prefer it this way?

 

[Sal1950]

I tend to smash the whole thing flat across the board,

I've heard Rays system with his full range EQ and it sounded amazing to me.
I also run Audyssey full range and prefer it's sound that way as opposed to only doing the base range.
JMHO

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Here is a measurement I did awhile ago comparing distortion of 15 ips 2 track analog tape (1kHz 250nWb/m) against vinyl (1kHz 7cm/s) from a test record. The vinyl has more even order harmonic distortion components which, if you must have distortion, I think sounds preferable to the odd order only of tape (aside from a small blip of 2nd harmonic). The distortion percentages are very similar.

 

[RayDunzl]

I'm assuming you've tried both, and you prefer it this way?

Nobody complains about how it sounds.

 

[RayDunzl]

Brightness is not highest frequencies. It's in the 2-6KHz range. Tone controls usually have a 10KHz corner frequency. And I agree with the original poster that a lot of recordings are too bright. I think it's because of mastering engineers who don't give a shit. I have a Quad preamp with useful tone controls, including spectral tilt.

Here's an RTA of a recording that has an unusually flat "curve" to it.



Plenty of HF content and level.

Doesn't sound "harsh" to me, so I think I'll retire from giving listening impressions.

Other RTA comparisons in post #36

 

[dasdoing]

flat speakers in a treated room seam to produce a HF roll-off above 10000ish.
what I do is take a meassurement, identify the rolloff and then only flatten the response below it.

 

[auronthas]

Sorry to bring up this old post, of late I come across an album with many songs sound "bright" and harsh, I have no choice but tune my Topping D90 DAC to -9dB or lower the volume of my integrated amplifier. I have had loudness test on several tracks and found the integrated LUFS is -7 LUFS average scored.

Are they sound too "loud"? Can't listen too long and feel fatigue. Compare to my other good recording albums, the LUFS is -12 to -14 LUFS.

 

[DimitryZ]

Maybe I am an outlier, but I spent some time getting my speakers - Eminent Technology LFT-8Bs - setup in my room, with rear wall foam damping, no toe-in and the tweeter level set in between stock settings (talking to Bruce Tingpen about it). Two HSU subs also make the system tonal balance adjustable.

The result seems to be just about right HF balance on most things I listen to.