Putting the question out here for discussion as I realized that we never have discussed it as a forum here. The decent price on a used RME DAC in the deals thread got me thinking especially since I spent some time fiddling last night.
What’s your general experience, if you do it, how do you go about it and if you’re a purist what are your thoughts around that.
I’m old enough to remember the 80s where no self respecting audio system was caught dead without an EQ in the chain and no car was ever whip without a seven band Alpine graphic equalizer.
Then for whatever reason, you couldn’t even find Bass and Treble tone controls on a high end piece of gear? It was like a complete disappearance of anything having to do with signal alteration. Any mention, stricken from the record. lol
So here’s a place for discussion, maybe talking points about what cans benefit and whether you do it via a s/w app, via a dsp or you still rock your grandpa’s hardware.
I generally don’t use EQ but am not specifically against it. Only time I’ve used it for a long amount of time was when I had the Hiby R6 (not the RS6) because it’s midrange was too bloated. I always had that EQd toned down and didn’t mind as I didn’t notice a loss in sound quality. For a short amount of time I did EQ the Fostex because I wanted more forward mids but there was an incredible loss of sound quality where it wasn’t worth. I was like, might as well get any headphone at that point lol.
Generally I prefer to not have to EQ anything because I have a weird self rule or desire I guess if having the sound I want only through things like the headphones nature itself or modifying with different amps & dacs. But Its not a hill interested in dying on.
I just make sure that every headphone I want meets the requirements Aka mid forward to an extent. So semi-purist but not really married to the idea. Just a general rule of thumb
I think eq is a great tool but I don’t use it because it’s too much of a hassle and it’s very time consuming if you’re not used to it (which I’m not). I’d rather use it as a last resort for tweaking but even then I still probably won’t use it. So I guess I’d consider myself a “purist.” Lol
Though I’ve been hearing claims recently that an eq’ed lcd 5 is the best headphone in the world (which is probably a whole rant in itself)!
It depends. Lcd-x yes, hd800s no (but i put in a slight bass shelf so yes), anything using the cowon yes the dsp is great there. Hd6xx, Atrium, everythibg else i owned no.
I used to really love eq’in to my tastes but now i rather just spend the time listening.
Lol. I think most of us are probably gonna be same camp. Kinda purist but kinda not haha. It really seems to be a type of fix if you have a frequency related problem only.
I generally don’t EQ, but it’s a valid way to tune a headphone, it’s no different than what RIAA Equalization does for vinyl, accommodate the weaknesses of the format by adjusting the input.
The issue I generally have is if it’s a part of the tuning, making sure it’s available everywhere.
For the most part digital is the best way to do it, and large convolution filters for correction are greatly superior to parametric EQ, if you can get them.
The only time I’ve done it recently, was for speakers, and I used Roon to do it.
Generally I don’t do it because I find it tends to muddy the sound, and frequency response is really one of the least important parts of presentation to me. If your into more bass that a headphone offers I could see adding a shelf.
Right on I getcha, in not generally super picky about frequency response but I will say I fall in the camp of being extremely picky of it for mids in particular so I’ve had to just choose the gear wisely around that.
Yeah it can be an issue. Basically what happened when I shortly EQd the Fostex headphone.
Not a fan of Eq.
I demonise these things.
Not that I would be able to adjust it if you spend a long time with it.
Have tried the Pc stuff like Apo and couldn’t get on with it.
I also bought an analogue which is quite good and was recommended to me, but even then it was quickly out of the chain.
When I had Roon on trial I tried the Lcd 2 Eq setting and didn’t like it either.
This is probably because if I were to use it, I would have to tune it to the tube amp separately because of the tubes.
Which is hardly ever the case when you use tube amps you know what you can do with them and what is possible.
And the sound still remains natural without artificial additives.
When using SS amplifiers, this can be useful.
I don’t necessarily want to talk badly about that.
SS amplifiers are seldom well tuned so that you can be satisfied with them, especially in the low budget sector, there is always an area that is unbalanced.
This can be helped artificially, but it will remain artificial most of the time.
That’s why I’m not such a fan of these things.
Replacing the capacitors or changing the SS amplifier would have a much greater and better effect on the headphones than artificially creating something that cannot be represented.
In the end, it’s a passion that’s up to you if you’re happy and satisfied with it.
If the person likes it that way, so be it.
Since everyone has their own sound preferences, you have to accept that.
What one must not forget is that it is only a tool that can contribute but does not require any necessary effort.
I always grin when I see the guys at ASR, they would rather EQ the sound of the headphones to their harmonic curve than just enjoy it as it is, even though they haven’t even listened to it for an hour or bought it and it hasn’t even been delivered.
I find that very amusing.
I can’t do anything until I know what’s wrong with the headphones.
Yeah basically it is eq. But it’s set in place so you can’t change the band and q value (unless you do it through software or digitally like the RME DAC). Good example is the schiit Loki.
Ah ah yeah see that’s pretty nice! The Hiby daps have a unique way of doing EQ @Souldriver has also used them. Its kinda like tone controls on a Dap, super neat. Easy for the user too!
Have nothing against EQ but the problem I found with it is that if you have multiple listening setups around the house, it’s not straightforward getting EQ in all of them which moved me from gear that required it in order for me to enjoy it properly.
For instance, in my living room through a Bluesound Node into the DAC and amp it’s only possible to EQ through Roon but in my office I can do it straight on the computer.
I’m moving away from Roon so have no other EQ option for my living room unless I buy dedicated gear for it.
My experience with EQ did however prove to myself that it can dramatically “fix” headphones. And yes, the LCD-5 is a different beast if EQed
Yes, and i really didnt like the Hiby magic-8 eq or whatever their name for it is. It changed too many things with one adjustment bar and it really went down hill if you went over 10 out of the 100 adjustment points. not a lot of wiggle room.
I’ve messed with eq with a Schiit Loki and a Behringer rack mounted cheapo type, tried out Roon’s eq, then as I got more into this hobby and was upgrading things in my system, thanks to Mon and Highfiguides, (and got the hell off of ASR, because no), everything started sounding much better with things like the Liquid Platinum and Neve, and rolling tubes perfected things even more, like Deleeh mentioned, and now I’m not chasing anything but the next cans and amps and dacs, lol, now that I know how much better things can sound in a natural, organic sense. The biggest upgrade for me was the Bifrost 2, and now I’m on to cables! Then it’ll be the LCD-24 I’ve been eyeballing, and then I’ll step it up with my system accordingly, but that’s for the future. All typos are mine, and to make a long story short: I don’t eq, but understand why anyone would. I think there is too much worship of the Harmon target going on out there, but that’s another discussion…
I was talking to my dad about this subject just today. We were speculating that we used to all have EQ because you needed it. You could correct for the variance in your gear, in how vinyl reproduces sound and then when cds came in, to get back a bit of flavour they took out. He was telling me that at first he couldn’t listen to cds without the treble making him wince. It sounded wrong to him.
I kind of miss them. Software ones are just not the same and nor are a couple of knobs to twiddle. If I have one I’d want a full on parametric one with lots of sliders. I miss having that sometimes! I had a very nice Technics one that was a hand me down, did me well for many years in the 90s. The only ones I can find now are super expensive rack mount ones and I just can’t really justify one. I suspect that the fun of buying different gear and finding good matches has taken the place. Instead of personally tuning the sound we buy gear that tunes it instead? Want bass? Buy from one list, want treble detail? Here is another. Still want EQ? Software will do it to a degree hardware never did and at a fraction of the cost.
Its funny as i was reripping all my music dbpower amp had so many options to compensate since early on CDs had some funky level and volume tags that some players could or could not read.
