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EQ

G

G.smith310

pfm Member
Purist in me hates using EQ

I just took delivery of some beautiful new speakers but they are overloading my room with bass. They are my first floor standers curtesy of a kind PFMer.

Perhaps these speakers are too much for my room as the bass booms like crazy. I have turned the bass down on my amp which seems to help a lot but I am worried I am adding distortion to the sound by going hard on the EQ (My background in sound engineering tells me that).

Is anyone else out there using amp EQ for anything other than subtle adjustments? Perhaps these speakers are just not for my room.

Many thanks
George
 
G.smith310 said:
Purist in me hates using EQ

I just took delivery of some beautiful new speakers but they are overloading my room with bass. They are my first floor standers curtesy of a kind PFMer.

Perhaps these speakers are too much for my room as the bass booms like crazy. I have turned the bass down on my amp which seems to help a lot but I am worried I am adding distortion to the sound by going hard on the EQ (My background in sound engineering tells me that).

Is anyone else out there using amp EQ for anything other than subtle adjustments? Perhaps these speakers are just not for my room.

Many thanks
George
Click to expand...
What are your speakers, George?
 
Nothing to worry about.
If you need EQ having done what you can with positioning and passive room treatments, use it.

Records wouldn't play without EQ, commercial recordings wouldn't exist, and most loudspeakers wouldn't work :)

The problem is that you often need more than the limited bass and treble controls found on amplifiers. Pulling down the bass can help if the boosted area is broad due to room or boundary gain but won't really help if you have one or two problem room modes. For those you need parametric EQ (or fairly granular graphic EQ at a pinch).

If you mainly use digital sources then many apps have EQ functionality.
Try something like Roon which has powerful parametric EQ built in. Play around and see if you like the results.
 
Everyone with the slightest interest in sound quality at low frequencies will use significant amounts electronic equalisation to reduce linear distortion. Amplifier tone controls are of only minor usefulness because the low frequency room response that requires countering with equalisation consists of series of strong resonances. More sophisticated forms of EQ are required that vary amplitude and phase with frequency. There are other methods to help control the room response like distributed sources, physical absorbers and resonators but even when using these electronic equalisation would still be used but not as strongly.
 
I think my main issue is that my amp EQ is 2 band

I’m pretty sure that I’ve only got an issue with a few frequencies and my amp is pulling out too much information.

Perhaps I need to look into some good quality dsp
 
I used to own floor standing Spendors.They we’re the original S6s with front firing port. The bass was a little prominent I seem to remember but I tamed it with positioning and the vice like grip of a Naim amp. Was a decent combo though I found it a little hard sounding.
 
Nothing wrong with EQ at all.

I use EQ within Roon and it’s fabulous, no one has the perfect room, if you think your system sounds good without eq and you have Roon, try it with it.

umik1, a laptop, REW and 20 mins is all it takes.. you’ll come out the other side thinking ‘Oh!’

I strangely don’t use EQ on my bass at all, a couple of midrange dips, and that’s it, but the naturalness comes into focus.
 
You really need to measure the room (acoustics) to identify where the issues are, post that, appropriately applied DRC can work wonders.

IMO bass and treble controls are typically too broad brush
 
I think digital EQ is amazing and does things that would've been impossible previously. My daughter has a small recording studio that's EQed and my son uses EQ heavily in hos system.

I do however think there are limits. If a room mode sets off bass then it will still do that no matter what you do to the EQ. Might not be as noticeable and more in balance but the problem is still there.

I think the best thing to do is get the room sounding as good as possible without the EQ first.
 
Mr Pig said:
I think digital EQ is amazing and does things that would've been impossible previously. My daughter has a small recording studio that's EQed and my son uses EQ heavily in hos system.

I do however think there are limits. If a room mode sets off bass then it will still do that no matter what you do to the EQ. Might not be as noticeable and more in balance but the problem is still there.

I think the best thing to do is get the room sounding as good as possible without the EQ first.
Click to expand...

For sure. Spend plenty of time getting the 'speakers to sound good without applying EQ. Sometimes that's enough.
If issues persist then look at EQ and use it sparingly.
 
Robert said:
Spend plenty of time getting the 'speakers to sound good without applying EQ. Sometimes that's enough.
Click to expand...

It's only relatively recently the extensive digital EQ option has been widely available. Prior to that all was had was system matching and moving stuff. Somehow, we survived.

Ignoring the basics and going straight to EQ is like baking a bad cake with cheap ingredients and trying to make it taste better by adding toppings. You need to get the fundamentals right or you're not going to get the best sound you can.
 
Mr Pig said:
It's only relatively recently the extensive digital EQ option has been widely available. Prior to that all was had was system matching and moving stuff. Somehow, we survived.

Ignoring the basics and going straight to EQ is like baking a bad cake with cheap ingredients and trying to make it taste better by adding toppings. You need to get the fundamentals right or you're not going to get the best sound you can.
Click to expand...

Oh I don't know, we've have good parametric EQ for many years.
 
If listening to anything digital just use the EQ available! Don’t worry about it, things like Roon especially change the output before the DAC, so you’re not effecting the sound quality at all..

I have a set of analogue 30band Rane Eqs which I used to use in car audio comps (so converted to 12v) and they were a godsend, and being analogue (and also combined with a matching active crossover) they sounded bloody awesome.

Here you go - x-over adjustment on the fly…

fAZzsyv.jpg


A couple of tricks were to never eq anything higher than flat, and use an RTA to eq both sides to exactly the same response. Then the speakers disappeared and you were left with a horizontal soundstage wider than the car.
 
Mr Pig said:
You need to get the fundamentals right or you're not going to get the best sound you can.
Click to expand...
Yes, and the fundamentals begin with the room. Bass traps in the two corners behind the speakers will make a huge difference with mitigating the excess bass frequencies, as will pulling the speakers well away from walls.
 
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