Equalizer in a Hi Fi system
Just curious to hear everyone’s opinions on using an equalizer in a high end hi fi system. Was at work tonight and killing time and came across a Schitt Loki max $1500 Equalizer with some very good reviews. What are some of the pros / Benefits and cons in using one. Just curious. BTW. I’m talking about a top of the line. Hi end equalizer. Mostly to calm some high frequencies and some bad recordings.
@mijostyn , open link below |
I just described what not to do with images... I described what to do with words ... It is so simple that you dont need an image of my speakers ... And my skin is thick but when troll hurt the same spot for years even crocodile skin reacted to this after few years ... I am not a crocodile ... If you want the right way to do my experiment i described it exactly ... If you want only image of my speakers porthole by curiosity i am sorry ...😁😉😊
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@mahgister oh Dang! on my request I guess my skin is thicker than yours? : ) |
Sorry but i dont post any image of my system here anymore ... But i will explain to you with photos what you must not do ... https://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/195983/straws-stuffed-in-the-ports here you have two images of what you must not do ..
The bundle of straws must be of different lenght or different volume ... You tune your speakers by ears to fine tune the needed volume/neck lenght ratio as with the Helmholtz resonators mathematical formulas but no computing is needed if you use your ears ...Mine had in this bundle of 17 straws 2 set of straws for example each set consist of 3 strwas inserted in one another almost 2 feet lenght behind the speaker ... Some others straws are shorter and longer than normal straws ... You play with the lenght and tune by ears ... Very easy and fun... My hertz extension go from 80 hertz now to 50 with no boominess and no impeding resonance as it was the case without this redesigned porthole .....Pick foldable straws by the way to help break the main resonance in smaller one , then use the complete straws or if you cut it the foldable parts ...experiment it is fun and paid a lot acoustically ... I was harassed non stop by idiots here for years with some openly mocking in the regular threads not only in the comments with photos of my "crazy" unesthetical room ... And i never dare to put my 100 resonators in any photos by chance because it was too much ...😁 Now i lived with smaller speaker in my acoustic corner ...i put standard image of my components not of my room sorry ...No need for an image whit what i just described anyway ... And please try to understand my position ...
By the way this idea comme from a speaker designer very knownnot from myself the "tin foil hat" for some here : Neville Theile
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@mahgister I would, personally, like to see a picture of your acoustical straw thing! And, I say: f#&k those who don't have respect for your ingenuity! ... I do. And I'm quite certain that there are many Lurkersout there, that really dig it, too, because I was one of them for years before I becamse brave enough to even comment. ha ha ha ha What stimulating conversation. : ) @mahgister will you post that picture, please? |
First it is impossible to reach the description of imaging you suggested by sheer luck with usual level components bought by someone who have no idea of what he was doing ...
I know because i listened to all possible systems of people like your friend , and i was one of them at some point most of my life , and there was no imaging as you described , no soundstage around the room with holographical volume for each instruments and listener envelopment and immersiveness in any of the system i heard by sheer luck or by the magical power of the gear with no room control ...
it is impossible to do it with the wrong synergy between components , but impossible to do without a control over vibrations and resonance and a minimal control over the noise floor level of the system and of the house and especially impossible to do in a non dedicated non controlled room ...
With low cost components but very good one you can have an imaging , soundstage and holography relatively near but only relatively near the maximum acoustical satisfaction threshold for sure but you must know what you do to reach this point and learn it...Not by sheer luck because no piece of gear works magically at his optimum level without mechanical, electrical and acoustical control , Sorry ...
It takes very high end components to do it crossing the maximum acoustic threshold satisfaction but many people owning high end system dont know how to do it anyway and their costly system sound not right nor musical nor holographical ...Read people who visit showroom or visit one ...
And EQ tool is not enough to do it , it help because it is a useful tool but thats all ...The only DSP able to do it is the BACCH filters by the way , no other one ...Read Choueiri to understand why he is a physicist and know acoustic ...
But you are right on this point it takes deep bass control to go over the minimal satisfaction threshold level to go the maximum or top level ...
It is why i enjoy fully this imaging , soundstaging and holography at a satisfying level with my headphone which beat everything i listen to by a big margin ...they go near 20 hertz by design and clearly by optimization ...
But my low cost small speakers work well and beat most headphones but they lack deep bass control, then even if i enjoy an imaging very good with a soundstage completely out of the speakers plane , even if i am near the musicians playing, in spite of that the soundfield is not in the same realism level than with my headphone but trust me it is a very good one, but me, in the opposite situation of your past young friends i know how and why i did it and it was not by luck , which is impossible to do , but by experimenting and studying ..
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No one can do this by luck, guess why ? Compute this probability ...
Add all the factors at play, all the acoustic factors and there is more than a dozen factors at least which must works all together toward some necessary balanced way , and they all must be synchronized ... Even the best EQ without any acoustic controls cannot do it ... The only DSP with measures of the inner ears and HTRF that can do it , taking into account the owner physical being measures , his location , and the speakers/room specific acoustic state interrelation characteristics is the BACCH filters ... Any other DSP or EQ cannot control the crosstalk phase loss in any stereo system even with an EQ at any price ...
Forget going there by luck, as your friend did , with modest gear from decades ago even with top one as my Sansui alpha and AKG K340...mythical vintage design... It takes HTRF measures, inner ears measures, very good gear in a controlled room and the BACCH filters ...
But certainly you know better than me if you had heard it from your friend system created by luck and magical unconscious power ... 😊
In all probability one of us, you or me had not experienced what is a good imaging, soundstage and holography, a natural timbre with immersiveness all together ...
Probably i know too much in my head or get all wrong and lack the luck of your past friend ...😁
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That comment was not meant to be condescending tl, it is an unfortunate fact of life. Very few systems image near the state of the art or have the level of detail heard in even moderately priced headphones. I lived with such systems for decades. I have heard four systems image at state of the art levels in 60 years. The first one was at age 21, the system of a high school teacher. The funny thing is that he had no idea what he was doing, it was shear luck. That system made my life a lot more expensive searching for that level of performance. Imaging is not just right to left differentiation and a false sense of 3 dimensions generated by artificial echo. It is the generation of the space the recording was performed in and the sense that instruments are 3 dimensional objects standing in space. Really large spaces breath at very low frequencies and you have to be able to get down to 18 Hz flat to replicate that. Most systems are lucky to get to 40 Hz flat. Loudspeaker specs are very misleading. What a speaker does at one meter is a whole lot different than what it does at 4 meters in a room. Gunnar Olsen's bass drum should kick you against the rear wall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnEqnvz7Qkc. What a machine, one of the very best drummers alive, Carmine Appice with style. Only one DEQX needed. It is a digital preamplifier with full DSP capability including a four way crossover, room control, EQ and Bass management. It even has a phono stage. Once you know what you are doing you can go anywhere. It is also like cheating. It is a shortcut to a state of the art system. https://www.deqx.com/products/ Where do you see that the Chord operates on a 104 bit system? The only spec I saw was 32 bits. The processor in the DEQX probably costs as much as the entire Mojo. I can not make a comparison statement because I have never played with a Mojo 2. It certainly does not have near the capability of the DEQX. I doubt anyone would use the Mojo as the preamp in a $150K system. The DEQX will EQ at a resolution of 0.1 Hz via target curves. You draw the frequency response curve you want on a computer and download it to the DEQX. It will overlay the curve on whatever it has to do for room and bass management. |
@tlcocks Good to know. Thanks. I’m still learning. It’s fun also. |
@tattooedtrackman , if you ever feel compelled to cut 10K on a thin recording, try fleshing out the mid bass, upper bass and lower mids instead. Little boosts with those. Like 60 to 300 hz. I hate cutting anything unless I have to. |
@tshark , yes it’s funny I remember my ole 10 band JVC SEA-1 EQ even though it’s been 35-40 years! |
“Sound Labs will go all the way to 20 kHz flat with the right amp. Fortunately for me the DEQX has a 4 way crossover and the Sound Labs has both a low frequency and high frequency transformers which can be biamped. The current plan is to drive the high frequency transformer with a Bricasti M25. ” @mijostyn , help me understand. I get the biamping plan with the Bricasti driving 5K up. So how many DEQX? Just one for low end. Or two? One for each amp? Sorry confused, but want to understand |
That’s totally awesome. My guy Ed at Audible Images will have one to demo in a few weeks. Look forward to going up and playing with one. Only out of sheer curiosity as I’m always stoked to hear my unit. You know you have a good one when every time you fire it up it puts a smile on your face like you’re hearing good hi fi for the very first time. 😊 |
@tlcocks Yes I do usually increase the 10k I meant to say that with the recording I’ve listened to many had to be cut due to high frequency in the recording. But a very good recording I do increase the 10k. I too love good bass and good treble but not bright. This certainly does it job well. |
@kykat I posted my review Please go back to the page before this I believe. Quick reply >. I love the MQ112 |
We’ll…unless you’ve got a room like @kykat that sounds pretty challenging! Interesting about active traps. given how many people have room modes I feel pretty lucky that my bass response is so even in my room |
As far as room mechanical controls, as mentioned by mahgister - traps, diffusors, helmholtz devices and such: I have a troublesome boom between 70 and 80 hz caused by room dimensions and have been looking at different ways to reduce these peaks. I have some homemade broadband traps and a bit of diffusion but not enough space for diffusion to fully do it's optimal scattering thing.
My speakers are Spatial Audio M3 Turbo S. The maker, Clayton Shaw, has been very generous with his time in answering questions from me as to improving my experience with the speakers. Yesterday, he told me about something new to me, PSI Audio from Switzerland and their AVAA active 'traps'. Very pricy but for those who can afford them, a potential solution to some very hard to solve (mechanically) issues.
Big picture, they use a microphone and generate a signal 180 degrees out of phase to effect cancellation of certain frequencies. An active solution in a smaller package than many helmholtz devices or conventional traps. These seem to offer a way for dealing with some low frequency issues without inserting a device into the signal path. Great thread! I hadn't seen any mention of these devices and just had to share what Clayton had shared with me. It may help someone, I hope.
Anxious to hear from trackman.... |
Maybe one of the best lines in this thread.
And this is a gem too. yes I have.
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Agreed @mahgister |
EQ digital or analog is a tool among other tools ...No singular tool alone is the solution... The solution is complex and implicate all tools: room mechanical controls, speakers controls by analog and/or digital tools and the necessary revolutionary BACCH filters too which can regulate for the best the relation between speakers/room and ears/brain ... No tool replace the other tools ... For the time being there is no audio A.I. It will come soon anyway ...
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It’s far and away the BEST EQ discussion forum ever. Avoiding the boring diatribe of audiophiles bashing EQ in general, one. And two, we have a resident expert on the digital side with @mijostyn and a resident expert on the analog side with Miro. |
i stand to LEARN the most from you, by the way, as you are deep into the digital side of high end. As much or more as I am the analog side. And your equipment is top notch. So bear in mind while I call have called you out on your condescending nature at times, as Miro has, that I like you and want a healthy exchange of ideas and can learn a lot from you. I do think digital eventually can eclipse analog for the top octave one day. Your systems are top flight and maybe you know something I don’t. That’s why I’m always open minded. I also think even the greatest hi fi systems can benefit from EQ due to the aforementioned inherent flaws which are numerous as eloquently laid out by @mahgister. I feel once playing with hi fi gear that there’s more “bang for the buck “ exploring best EQ solutions as opposed to continually upgrading equipment in the chain. If I were very rich I’d do both. But I am not. |
understand and your comments duly noted. A question and a comment. If there were a 13,000 dollar Chord processing preamp utilizing its proprietary 104 bit processor, would its EQ sound better than what you’re using? Phrased differently, how does Chord s 104 bit algorithm compare to floating point 64 bit in similarly priced similarly powered systems, if it existed? Isn’t 104 better than 64, or is programming a digital EQ not that simple? (That’s all one question, really). Comment: headphones DO NOT sound as natural timbre wise as loudspeakers. You are right. But like anything else, if you work hard enough at finding it, a very rare few do. My HEKse is known in head fi circles to be one of the five or so best opened backs on the planet. Trust me it comes close to loudspeakers. Lastly careful with slightly disrespectful comments which are simply unproven such as headphone enthusiasts tend to have lower fi loudspeaker systems. That is uncalled for, I think. |
I dont like headphone too ... Save my AKG K340 modified and optimized the only one hybrid design ever working for 45 years ...It is like owning a set of speakers with subs... If the recording is good the sound create an out of the head experience and the timbre is completely natural which 2 aspects were not at all in any of the other headphones i used in my life ...And anyway with the BACCH filters the headphone experience will not be far behind the speakers experience ...The K340 give me a bit of it already with his 2 innovative technologies inside the complex shell chambers ...
First acoustics is way more than just room acoustic controls , especially more than room acoustic thought by the average consumers ... Room control is not a misnomer , because it is not to be confused with the speaker control ... You forgot that the room could be transformed optimally in his acoustic content with not only diffusive surface and reflecting or absorbing one but also with Helmholtz tuned resonators distributed on specific pressure zone and you forgot that we can modify the geometry and modify the topology related to some specific chosen gear and listener position ...This is room controls ...It serve not only the speakers specs by optimizing them but the Ears/ head/ brain location ... Dont forget that the ears/brain live in his own non linear time domain in a room and this time domain concrete territory is not exactly the same as the linear one of the Fourier mapping ... The ears/brain dont obey Fourier laws but infringe on them as revealed by their own workings when measured ...Room acoustic controls and equalization controls go then together, ONE DO NOT REPLACE THE OTHER ....But even these two are not enough ... we need more controls than speakers and room controls ... And room control implicate even some DSP as the Choueiri BACCH filters which cannot replace room control but can optimize it from specific listener position and his mandatory inner ears and HTRF measures ... Any stereo system is FLAWED... Not because the speakers are flawed or the room is flawed but because one aspect of any stereo speakers is UNCONTROLLED : crosstalk ... This crosstalk between the two speakers impede all spatial acoustic information transmission for the two ears/brain of the listener in his specific ideal position as measured in room acoustic control ... The BACCH filters work correcting not the speakers control but the relation between speaker controls and room controls and listener location ... Then all is not in the world as your obsession with one form of equalization dictate, the one you bought 😁 ... Room controls exist ( mechanical equalization with tuned distributed resonators among other devices ) as exist speakers controls with EQ and as exist some DSP as the BACCH filters correcting the relation between the speakers and the room various controls and the listener ears/brain location and dimensions ... |
The Chord Mojo 2 is a cute little DAC/headphone amp. The fastest it can go is 756/32. The Artix 7 field programmable gated array processor is trick in this application because it requires very little power. A 64 bit Floating point processor would roast that little unit alive. You might even burn your hand. It is nowhere near as powerful as a Trinnov Amethyst or the DEQX Pre 8. I hate headphones by the way. I do not like the way the music is presented. It is very unnatural. It is interesting to note that people with the very best systems do not use headphones. I should also note that people who live in apartment buildings might have no choice. I've been there and hated it, I suspect my neighbors also hated me😈 In short, comparing something like the Chord Mojo 2 to an Amethyst or Pre 8 is folly at best. The best comparison to the Mojo would be the MiniDSP SHD another 32 bit device. The Amethyst and DEQX Pre 8 are full function preamps. Both even have phono stages. Both use 64 bit floating point processors so degradation at low volumes is insignificant. This is extremely important for processors that are being used to adjust volume levels at various frequencies. Room acoustics are very important and most rooms require some sort of management depending on the type of speaker used. Room control is a misnomer. It is really speaker control. It repairs and adjusts things that are totally immune to room management like group delays and the variations in frequency response between the two channels. Then there is making the system sound the way you want it to. I boost bass below 100 Hz and attenuate frequencies above 1000 Hz. I have my own "house" curve. I also have a high volume curve which flattens the bass and reduces treble even further. People never realize how loud the system is playing until they try to talk. |
@tattooedtrackman , if that 10K switch is properly implemented you should find benefit out of occasionally boosting it for some records. If you don’t and it’s always flat of cut, then McIntosh didn’t implement it well. Eg too broad a Q hence pulling undesirable frequencies up too, for example. Its center point is too low, so likely tge Q would be narrow and may not sound that natural and good to boost. You never know though. I’ve got a 10K switch in my car stereo that I boost usefully often. I you have hi fi gear, which clearly you do, not sure why you’d ever cut at 10K. Unless a record is unusually bright. I don’t know. Guess I’m a quality bass and treble lover. Adds EXCITEMENT and life. I’m at zero to +3 db for excellent recordings but can be as high as +8 for dull or bass less recordings, usually older. |
Miro, I couldn’t agree more with you. Again, we are kindred souls. Totally agree that most audiophiles have NO IDEA how good a quality treble shelf or broad bell can sound. How well it can integrate with the music and not draw attention to itself and truly open up , beatify, and breathe air and life into a flat or dull record on hifi gear. Why do few know this? It’s because like you said there are so many poor implementations of bass and treble tone control. You have to go out of your way to find it. Which you and I have. And we’re rewarded in spades! |
@tlcocks What do u mean how is the 10k treble band. It’s excellent. I wouldn’t want to go any higher with another frequency knob. It’s more than enough. I usually back it off also. |
Most audiophiles have no idea how musical good Hi & Lo shelving EQ can really sound because it's so poorly implemented on most HiFi gear. Many years ago I had an NAD C165BEE preamp. Only $999, entry level hi-end, I realize, but I was shocked at how bad the tone controls sounded. Every time I turned up Bass or Treble, it instantly called attention to itself, rather than simply being part of the music. I have a Manley/Langevin mic-preamp that has Bass & Treble shelfs, each with 2 turnover frequenices that sound amazing. I'd kill to have THESE tone controls incorporated into a hi-fi preamp. They gently shape the music without sounding phasey or electronic. Switchable frequencies is SO important too. People and/or companies seem to fear knobs and switches these days. So many preamps today are totally featureless. I don't get it. My name, is Miro. I'm old, and I like knobs and switches. |
@tattooedtrackman Congrats!! I hadn't seen your system before, but the MQ112 looks very "at home". I'm a longtime owner of Matrix 801's, and I've never heard the big 800's. I do however remember being blown away by the big 808's back in 1985.
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@tattooedtrackman , I’m very happy for you!! |
Well it’s been a full day of listening to my system with my new McIntosh MQ112 and I have to say I ABSOLUTELY love it. This is exactly what I was missing and needed for myself. As I said for myself and my listening and hearing tastes in sound. Every time I play CDs I find myself saying what a difference in sound quality in some recording that were too high in frequencies that now I can simply adjust with a knob. Even great recordings can sound even better. What I also really love is that TILT feature knob. It’s a quick fix without even adjusting any other frequency knobs. Plus then if u want and need to can fine tweak the tilt knob with the other 8 band frequencies. I also find myself not getting up and down as often as I thought without a remote but many times once I have adjusted some frequency it is very good for many CDs or recordings. I have to say I give this MQ112 a big thumbs up 👍. It’s also a very nice addition in my system. I also added new photos and updates on my system profile. Check ‘em out. |
Just did a fairly intensive comparison between the CO modest treble boost and M2 modest 104 bit digital treble boost using a fairly cymbals heavy rock track. Did this comparison running straight out of M2 3.5 to headphones as well as running the M2 line level (volume matched) into my Headamp. Did this comparison also using both the Fostex TH900 and the Hifiman HE1000SE headphones. I listened only to the presentation of the cymbals. I also listened through both equalizers flat to see that cymbals very similar that way. Big differences though once both EQs in and compared. The M2 digital EQ, despite its being 104 bit processing, presented the cymbals more truncated or compressed sounding. EVEN AT 104 BIT. on M2 cymbals were rougher and less natural sounding than CO analog. On CO, leading and trailing edges smoother with clearer attack and better sustain than digital. I knew all this already but really had to dig in this time and prove it. Conclusion? No question that analog high end EQ presents treble nuance much better in a treble boost situation than even 104 bit “lossless” (as Chord describes it) digital. So…so long as I have any upper octave rolled off ness at all with my equipment or the recordings I listen to and love then I will stick with my studio mastering analog EQs |
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@mijostyn , Trinnov Amethyst has 64bit floating point processing. Can you in anyway compare and contrast its capabilities vs the Chord Mojo2 104 bit processor? I know that one it’s face this query seems ludicrous because the Mojo2 is an $800 portable device. But I ask anyway. I’ve used the Mojo2 as a source dac EQ in both my big rig and my headphone chain, and the CO approach sounds better. |
@mijostyn , are those designs pre/processor/dac or no dac? |
@jacobsdad2000 , we’ve covered this already. To EQ or not. Moved beyond that now. |
