Graphics Equalizers

It depends entirely where the eigentones are - and in many uk living rooms they are clustered around 40-50hz which can really screw up bass, making it overblown and one note.
Moving the speakers or listening position might reduce one of them but not all.

Personally I find the effects of the room, and in some cases equipment balance far more intrusive to quality than the effect of tone control circuits.

Also why assume that the studio engineers got it right?
You are simply hearing their choice and there is nothing wrong with you altering it, if you then find the end result more enjoyable. Certainly if you listen to some music released today ut clearly isn't balanced for playback on a h-fi system as we know it, more likely a car system or earbuds.
You can't undo that mess but you can get a more listenable result.

By not having tone controls you give up all control and rely on the competence of the mastering engineer. If we were talking 1950 or 1960, perhaps 70s I might not be so concerned. Much output over the past couple of decades is all over the place!

 

But that has little to do with EQ,more the over use of compressors and other such nasties

 

I want to hear what's on the record, I'm not interested in second guessing the producers (at least not on a regular basis).

To that end I see no need for tone controls or equalisers. There is perhaps a purpose to trying to fix poor the in-room bass with electronics, but that has to be a second best approach.

And in practice there's nothing I've wanted to listen to where I'd also want to re-engineer it. As all my digital listening is now from Squeezebox it would be very easy to do in a transparent way.

Paul

 

Then why does the great majority of audiophiles, people who may spend a great deal of money as well as effort on their systems, not use equalisers, and even regard them as more harmful than useful? 'One-note bass' comes from speaker defect, because it is a resonance of the speakers, not a room. Speakers are nearly always the culprit for boom. Provided speakers are well-designed and manufactured, well selected for their intended purpose, well set up, and well maintained, excessive bass resonance will not be much in evidence, if at all. Perfectionists design rooms specially for hi-fi rather than use equalisers, and even then the benefits are not all that obvious.

One instance of troublesome 'room resonance' was cured simply by switching off the socket ring of the mains, then cleaning the fuse socket and fuse holder pins with Brasso. (And the washing machine was less wobbly on spin, apparently!) Another case was solved by tightening woofer bolts. Tightening up speaker cable connections, even changing/cleaning interconnects, these are normally the ways to clean up bass, though the rest of the range benefits as well. The effects are often cumulative, and a thorough 'clean-up' will often transform a system, producing a sound that one could not buy for any money. The route to hi-fi is only half involved in matters of the wallet.

Anyway, there's a fair difference between 40 Hz and 50 Hz- half an octave! Much music does not get down that low, or not often. And few speakers actually produce much below 50 Hz. Room resonance can actually assist in this part of the spectrum. Most boom is from about 100 Hz up, which is where human hearing begins to get sensitive and boom gets annoying.

Because they have equipment and expertise to get it right. The rest of us just need to get the basics of hi-fi sorted. Messing about with 'equalisation' is much more likely to confuse the hi-fi owner than assist him, because it will disguise underlying problems. The first principle of hi-fi is to realise that high fidelity is the mains, modified. Putting that principle into action, getting really tight control of the signal presented to the speaker coils, prevents many problems. When that's done, one can really begin to appreciate the skills of musicians, and composers, too. And indeed the skills and knowledge of engineers and the recording companies who employ them, who know the value of their products.

Then it shouldn't be played on a hi-fi. Unless through earbuds.

 

Have you ever actually measured the effect different rooms can have on the same speakers system? It's frightening!!!

 

Same with auditoriums.

 

Sammyo -

I thought you'd gone quiet - it must be what happens when you get a system working the way you want !

You should put a list of your kit up (and a photo would be good) to see what you've ended up with.




My view on equalization and changing sound in general....

1) Yes, it should be done to correct room anomolies rather than recording differences. If you equalize to effect a recording difference you will need to do so for every recording - no thanks !

2) To change the sound to correct a room inbalance of some sort (and we all have them to one degree or another) you have to know i) what the sonic characteristics of your room are ii) which part of the spectrum you wish to affect iii) have the knowledge and ability to effect the problem area and iv) have the ability to measure before/after any changes to make sure you have made the change you require.

3) Room treatments to affect a required change * (again you need to know what you want to change, measure before and after) should be done first, using equalization to affect change should be your 2nd and last line of defence.


Some (most) dont do any of this - and of course this leads to life-long box-swapping in many cases.

All IME.

 

See my other thread! Photos hopefully coming, at least of the turntable!

 

Still don't understand how you can say "one note bass" can only come from a speaker defect and not the room?

 

Read what I wrote about it, then. All of it. People who give their opinions without taking account of previously written reasoning shoot themselves in the foot.

 

I did read all of it and don't agree, that's all.

 

For 'agree' read 'like'.

 

.....or 'believe'

 

I cannot agree at all.
Audiophiles are a fickle bunch and do some daft things - just because they jump on a bandwagon doesn't make it right.

One note bass can be a speaker issue, but also a room issue.
If your room has a main mode at 50hz giving say a +9db lift at the listening position, and you play something with bass guitar with fundamentals spanning say 40-120hz it will sound 'one note' and very unbalanced. it certainly won't come close to the studio mix which is surely what you are aiming for, as a spice avoiding purist?
You should deal with the problem, firstly by speaker placement and then if the problem persists and spoils your listening pleasure, with tonal correction IMO.

 

Audiophiles are neither fickle nor prone to jump on bandwagons. That's why they are audiophiles. This is no fad, there has never been sympathy for equalisers among audiophiles, unless they are very expensive to overcome their own connection disadvantages and to have narrow enough passbands.

If anything is a gimmick, it's a graphic equaliser in an ordinary audio system. I hesitate to use the word 'hi-fi'.

It will be noticed when the guitarist hits G or G#. And will probably be enjoyed. Electric guitars make an artificial sound, anyway.

 

Most live sound systems we listen to will have some form of EQ. Many are not properly set-up but it happens anyway.

If audiophiles are trying to create the "live" experience at home, what's so wrong with using a bit of EQ as well?

I wonder if you comments are more related to classical music rather than amplified?

 

My comments are related to high fidelity. If people want to use other criteria than that, that is their affair. It's a free-ish world.

 

I say.....bring back the "loudness control"!

Many years spent enjoying those in my youth when I didn't know better...

 

...er, isn't that the kettle calling the pot black, Rob??

FWIW, IME if you have to start twiddling with tione controls you've got som ething else wrong.

I'm not especially an audiofile though.

If you like the sound of your system Sammy thats all that matters.

Enjoy!