Equalizer no more?

[E-Stat]

This raises the question, who does the "EQ is impure" croud think all those slider controlls in the recordind studio are?

I believe EQ has a place at the low end only. That is for low frequencies where untreated rooms exhibit all sorts of nodes. Rooms can, however, be treated using bass traps and the like. That's the approach I take.

For the recording studios who do EQ the recorded product to "perfection" (and not all do), why then would you need to re-EQ the original EQ?

rw

[PAT.P]

I believe EQ has a place at the low end only. That is for low frequencies where untreated rooms exhibit all sorts of nodes. Rooms can, however, be treated using bass traps and the like. That's the approach I take.

For the recording studios who do EQ the recorded product to "perfection" (and not all do), why then would you need to re-EQ the original EQ?

rw

E-Stat Im using a 31 band stereo for my basement set up.My EQ is for my CD player.I connected the output of cd to input of EQ,from there it is Y to 2 X2channel receiver (dont have it going the regular way to the tape monitor) and im only using el-cheapo speakers .BTW it sound really good ,I set the frequency to my taste.Even at low volume Im able to hear every imaging aspect of the music and voice.It suit me fine if other think of EQ as a no no.My EQ also hooks up my subwoofer,and it is set at 80 hz .In the way I set up CD to EQ I am changing the way it was rec in studio to what I think it should sound to my ears.Most enjoyable to my listening taste and Elvis lives in my basement

[E-Stat]

.Even at low volume Im able to hear every imaging aspect of the music and voice.It suit me fine if other think of EQ as a no no.

There are tradeoffs to every addition of an active stage and extra cables in the signal path. Equalizers aside, that's why I bypass the preamp with the CD source on two music systems. The improved resolution and stage width is evident to me on both. We take our choices.

Just curious. What frequencies do you boost / cut?

rw

[PAT.P]

There are tradeoffs to every addition of an active stage and extra cables in the signal path. Equalizers aside, that's why I bypass the preamp with the CD source on two music systems. The improved resolution and stage width is evident to me on both. We take our choices.

Just curious. What frequencies do you boost / cut?

rw

I start at 80hz and from there and cut at 10khz ,the voice range 1khz to 3.15 khz.I also have it set at 12 db in the range .Just added this EQ 2 weeks ago ,not like my 7 band this one also show you when its at the clip range .They say Accentuation of voice from 1.25 to 8khz Elvis does'nt reach that high.

[BillyB]

There is absolutely no place for EQ's in a high end stereo.The better Pre-amps don't even provide tone controls.Be happy with the salesman's explanation and invest your money into better components or speakers.

[PAT.P]

There is absolutely no place for EQ's in a high end stereo.The better Pre-amps don't even provide tone controls.Be happy with the salesman's explanation and invest your money into better components or speakers.

To each their own.I have very good speakers ,Energy ,Paradigm ,Dahlquist upstairs .Now I listen more music on cheap Jbl and Yamaha speaker and 25+ year old 2 channel receiver.Listen to your saleman, buy Monster cable and Bose speakers.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

There is absolutely no place for EQ's in a high end stereo.The better Pre-amps don't even provide tone controls.Be happy with the salesman's explanation and invest your money into better components or speakers.

You obviously don't have a basic understanding of the acoustics of a room, or the tools that can either correct them totally, or make them at least inoffensive to the ear.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I believe EQ has a place at the low end only. That is for low frequencies where untreated rooms exhibit all sorts of nodes. Rooms can, however, be treated using bass traps and the like. That's the approach I take.

E-stat, it is useless to use eq to deal with room nodes. Nodes are like a bottomless pits to try and fill in. It is best to be either IN a mode(where EQ can cut its effect) or at a point between a mode and a node(easiest to EQ) and put your primary listening position there(taking into consideration the optimum listening position for imaging ya hooo for subwoofers). Most bass traps on the market for consumers have little effect on the frequencies below 60hz, and this is where eq comes in to the picture.

For the recording studios who do EQ the recorded product to "perfection" (and not all do), why then would you need to re-EQ the original EQ?

There is a huge difference between the acoustics of a recording studio, and the environment, microphones, mixer, and engineer who actually recorded the event in a live room with different acoustics. The object of a recording is to capture as much of the event as possible which may not always sound the same when played back in a control room. Instrument balance may not always be there, vocals sometime need eq because of its usual phantom position between the speakers, light compression may need to be added to prevent pushing of the delivery medium. Control rooms need the acoustics and associated equipment to be able to reproduce every nuance of a recording good or bad. Sometimes the recording needs eq to correct any imbalances in its tonal structure and frequency balance. This is for both music and film soundtracks.

[BillyB]

You obviously don't have a basic understanding of the acoustics of a room, or the tools that can either correct them totally, or make them at least inoffensive to the ear.

You have listed an impressive list of Home theatre audio products. Home theatre is certainly geared towards endless sound adjustments.2 channel stereo is a totally different animal. Do you use an EQ or other equipment for altering your conventional HiFi stereo sound. Do you even care about the pure sound of an unaltered high end stereo.You didn't really say.

[gonefishin]

Best sound I've gotten is using a DEQX-p. Best I've heard or had in my system so far. It's only two channel by the way, BillyB

dan

[E-Stat]

Most bass traps on the market for consumers have little effect on the frequencies below 60hz, and this is where eq comes in to the picture.

A collection of eight 6 foot tall traps placed in the corners and wall mid points took care of a rather nasty but sometimes entertaining peak around 35-40 hz that used to live at the back end of my room.

Sometimes the recording needs eq to correct any imbalances in its tonal structure and frequency balance. This is for both music and film soundtracks.

Gee, perhaps you guys in the mixing room would consider where the recording is going to be heard. I'll keep the imbalance along with the resolution w/o the full range EQ.

rw

[PAT.P]

The whole purpose of an EQ is to get rid of frequencies in a sound we dont want and to enhance the frequencies we do want.I dont use it to correct a room or to enhance my speakers.Even if I had high-end equipment I would use one.BTW EQ was invented for the telephone,but they saw the potential for other use.Also a Bass and Treble control on a receiver is also considered a form of Equalizer.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

You have listed an impressive list of Home theatre audio products. Home theatre is certainly geared towards endless sound adjustments.2 channel stereo is a totally different animal. Do you use an EQ or other equipment for altering your conventional HiFi stereo sound. Do you even care about the pure sound of an unaltered high end stereo.You didn't really say.

Billy,
Hometheater is no more geared to endless sound adjustments than two channel stereo(which is a distortion in and of itself). Fortunately because I chose my components and speakers carefully, two channel sounds as good as multichannel in terms of sound quality. Do your realize that if you have loud modes(room induced peaks) in your room you are already altering the sound quality. The object of EQ(along with other acoustical tools)is to remove such peaks. If you think for a second that your room is not subject to the laws of small room acoustics, you are sorely mistaken. ALL small rooms have acoustical problem of some sort and need to use some sort of acoustical correction tools.

I placed my listening viewing seat for optimum imaging and viewing, measured the frequency response of my system at that place, used acoustical foam to tame a high frequency slap echo, and my EQ's for the low end, and I have never touched it again. No endless tweaking here. If the recording doesn't sound good, it has to stand on its own in my room.

Unless you sit VERY near your speakers, there is no such thing as unaltered music in small rooms

[smoothjazz]

Wrong!!!!!!! There is one high end manufacturing company that does produce equalizers, audio control c-101 series 3 retail $400.00.I own one & let me tell u for 2 channel stereo music which is the only way to really listen music,the unit is top notch.Audio control has been around for years since the 70's to be exact & their eq's are definetly and asset to any high end system,they even sell processesors for multiple channel HT The series c-101 even acts as a sound analyzer place the mic that comes with it in your listen position and the freakin thing will adjust the acoustics from your own room for best sound quality reduce reflections enhance highs or undefined whatever may ill u.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

A collection of eight 6 foot tall traps placed in the corners and wall mid points took care of a rather nasty but sometimes entertaining peak around 35-40 hz that used to live at the back end of my room.

You have measured this with a RTA and confirmed your results? How thick are the traps. They would have to more than 2-3ft thick to handle bass peaks that low.

Gee, perhaps you guys in the mixing room would consider where the recording is going to be heard. I'll keep the imbalance along with the resolution w/o the full range EQ.

If you heard how unbalanced some recording can turn out, you would not say this. We have considered where this is going to be heard, that is why recording and mixing rooms have such controlled acoustics. If a mixing studio had some major acoustical issues, and a engineer was mixing in that room, some pretty terrible stuff would come out of there. EQ is in many instances VERY necessary for both balancing mixes, and for controlling room acoustics.

[E-Stat]

You have measured this with a RTA and confirmed your results? How thick are the traps. They would have to more than 2-3ft thick to handle bass peaks that low.

No, but I have test disks and know what 40 hz sounds like. My room dimensions are less than ideal at 30 x 15 and the U-1s have nice first octave output. Four of the traps are 18", two are 12" and the remainder are 8".

We have considered where this is going to be heard, that is why recording and mixing rooms have such controlled acoustics. If a mixing studio had some major acoustical issues, and a engineer was mixing in that room, some pretty terrible stuff would come out of there. EQ is in many instances VERY necessary for both balancing mixes, and for controlling room acoustics.

I'm confused as this statement seems to conflict with your earlier comments:

Control rooms need the acoustics and associated equipment to be able to reproduce every nuance of a recording good or bad. Sometimes the recording needs eq to correct any imbalances in its tonal structure and frequency balance.

Which seemed to suggest that you have to re-EQ the recording at home to get a natural result. If you recall, my point to sam9 was given that the recordings are properly EQed from the outset, why then do you need to re-EQ it full range afterwards? I do note later, however, that you say you only EQ the bottom end ( I made that comment as to the value of EQ in an earlier post), then set it and forget it. Perhaps I misunderstood your earlier comments.

I gather you don't apply +12 to the midrange either.

rw

[E-Stat]

There is one high end manufacturing company that does produce equalizers, audio control c-101 series 3 retail $400.00

I"m sure that's nice gear, but we have a different perspective on what constitutes high end audio.




rw

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

No, but I have test disks and know what 40 hz sounds like. My room dimensions are less than ideal at 30 x 15 and the U-1s have nice first octave output. Four of the traps are 18", two are 12" and the remainder are 8".

Let me ask you a question. Are you sure the traps are taming the very low end, or its harmonics above? As you know when you have a peak response in your room, it is not just the fundemental peak that rings, but all of its harmonics until your reach the harmonic that become inaudible to the ear. You could very well have tamed the amplitude of the upper harmonics of the fundemental without actually touching the fundemental itself. Only a RTA will tell you that. The ear may perceive a lowering of the overall volume of the peak with the fundemental ringing away. The 18" traps have probably lowered the harmonic peak of your 40hz mode at 80hz, 160hz and above, but 18" is not likely enough foam depth for a 40hz peak.

I'm confused as this statement seems to conflict with your earlier comments:

Control rooms need the acoustics and associated equipment to be able to reproduce every nuance of a recording good or bad. Sometimes the recording needs eq to correct any imbalances in its tonal structure and frequency balance.

Which seemed to suggest that you have to re-EQ the recording at home to get a natural result. If you recall, my point to sam9 was given that the recordings are properly EQed from the outset, why then do you need to re-EQ it full range afterwards? I do note later, however, that you say you only EQ the bottom end ( I made that comment as to the value of EQ in an earlier post), then set it and forget it. Perhaps I misunderstood your earlier comments.

I gather you don't apply +12 to the midrange either.

rw

You seem to have confused the medium with the playback location. In order to hear every nuance in the medium, the playback location must have a tight control over its acoustics. If the string basses in a classical recording are out of balance because of microphone location, it would be pretty difficult to tell how much to EQ the recording if the room is ringing with it. How do you tell which is the room and which is the recording under those circumstances?

If you know that your room has good acoustics through measurements and correction, then it is easy to balance the string basses because they would stick out of the recording upon playback. Usually with classical music the string basses would not have an isolated track to reduce the volume using a fader, so eq HAS to be used so the string basses can be balanced against the rest of the orchestra. Not everyone that knows how to record live can do it well, so sometimes touchups in terms of balance and frequency response becomes necessary to get the best out of the recording. While you set and forget the room EQ, the program balance will always be different between recordings.

As a practice I never use EQ for room problems above 300hz. At this frequency and above acoustical foam has much more broadband control than electronic EQ. Below this frequency it get a little too expensive to try and tame problems with foam treatment, not to mention that it takes up alot of space in the room. You use your acoustical tools best when you use them in the best way they function.

[E-Stat]

Let me ask you a question. Are you sure the traps are taming the very low end, or its harmonics above?

You may well be correct. The difference I discern, however, is largely felt, not heard. I will readily acknowledge that the traps have primarily affected the mid/upper bass allowing for a clearer rendition of that which is lower.

While you set and forget the room EQ, the program balance will always be different between recordings.

And I let that be the case rather than trying to chase correcting it afterwards.

As a practice I never use EQ for room problems above 300hz.

That says a lot. I, too differ from Pat's approach of using EQ for broadband corrections. Both my U-1s and Advents have HF controls that I may alter once in a blue moon for really poor recordings of otherwise enjoyable music.

rw

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

And I let that be the case rather than trying to chase correcting it afterwards.

rw

You don't have to, the mixing engineer already did that job for you!

[BillyB]

Best sound I've gotten is using a DEQX-p. Best I've heard or had in my system so far. It's only two channel by the way, BillyB

dan

I went to the website for your sound calibration Pre-amp.It's an interesting concept.I just wonder if the $4000 (If you indeed spent that much)should just be put into even better equipment with no sound altering.That being said,you are obviously into your stereo and I don't doubt that it sounds great.Enjoy it!!

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I went to the website for your sound calibration Pre-amp.It's an interesting concept.I just wonder if the $4000 (If you indeed spent that much)should just be put into even better equipment with no sound altering.That being said,you are obviously into your stereo and I don't doubt that it sounds great.Enjoy it!!

Billy, what you don't seem to grasp is that no matter what kind of equipment you have, no matter what price level or technology involved, the room is the very beginning of getting good sound. In small rooms the ratio of room vs equipment is 70/30. The room is 70% of the equation. If you don't get it right, no matter how much your throw at the equipment it just won't sound good.

This is an excellent product designed to correct both the speaker response, and any room related responses. The DEQX technology is high acclaimed amoung both acoustical engineers and speaker builders alike. Is it worth $4000? Perhaps yes to a audiophile who doesn't want the speaker performance or the room acoustics to contaminate his or her music.

The very idea of purely clean signal paths from source to speakers is admireable, but not realistic in small rooms. You seem to have forgotten that there is another path that can effect the quality of the signal. The space between the drivers of the speaker, and your ears. That space has far more importance than getting a $6000 preamp, or $15,000 dollar speakers.

[gonefishin]

I went to the website for your sound calibration Pre-amp.It's an interesting concept.I just wonder if the $4000 (If you indeed spent that much)should just be put into even better equipment with no sound altering.That being said,you are obviously into your stereo and I don't doubt that it sounds great.Enjoy it!!

Hi BillyB,


Oh...I don't believe (any more) that there are pieces of equipment that don't alter the sound. preamp, amp, cdp, passive, active, tubed or ss...all of'em color it. But...you (or I) have to pick what fits us...our room...and the rest of our system.
Looking into other equipment...I couldn't have been happier with my previous preamp. A NOH (Stevens&Billington transformer based preamp) Which was a low veil passive preamp that sounded pretty darn good. But some gain issues with some new amps caused me to look into other avenues. Which is what brought me to the deqx. Before this I've owned, and still own some, other active, passive, tube and ss preamps. There's plenty of ways to achieve good audio results...this is the one I've found that works for me right now. With the additional support and firmware upgrades...this is going to be a tough one to beat.
I did get the preamp used, so it wasn't the full price. Although one thing I have noticed. The longer I stay in this audio hobby, I spend less and less money and spend more and more time building stuff. But again...this is what worked for me...we all have to find and figure out what we want.


oh...I noticed some of your comments about your room (high vaulted ceilings). Is there any way your wife would go for some room treatments? This will certainly help regardless of what speakers you have. But getting them into the main living room isn't always an option . But maybe...just maybe Ethan Winer and some others may have some good suggestions to any questions which you may have...here and here. Also check out the archives at both.

dan