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😈
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 ...
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.
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 ...
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I'm very happy for you too!Your first impressions have me researching EQ options more seriously now. There's only so much that can be practically done to fix my room.Thank you for posting.
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@mijostyn
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.
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@mijostyn
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.
I am really really enjoying this forum!
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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.
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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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Maybe one of the best lines in this thread.
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.
And this is a gem too. yes I have.
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.
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I do think there is more flaw to fix on the recording side than the playback side, assuming a reasonably good room. Otherwise why would my best recordings sound absolutely sublime on hi fi gear and not require any EQ? Miro has said this as well previously
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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....
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In other words what the artist intended doesn’t always translate post production. So being a good mastering mixing engineer is an art that must be very challenging. This why I like the cello palette Stereophile article so much. I just think that’s the biggest piece in the puzzle
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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
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I have Macintosh MA8900 . I sparingly use its 5 bandequilizer. It helps with room acoustics.
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It’s interesting to see how “what is old, becomes new”. I had a ten band equalizer that I used with my first (nice) stereo receiver. Back in the1970s I had a Pioneer SX550 (can’t believe that the model number just came back to me!) with 20 WPC.
Stand back!
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@kykat I posted my review Please go back to the page before this I believe. Quick reply >. I love the MQ112
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@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.
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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. 😊
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“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
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@tshark , yes it’s funny I remember my ole 10 band JVC SEA-1 EQ even though it’s been 35-40 years!
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@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.
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@tlcocks Good to know. Thanks. I’m still learning. It’s fun also.
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I use a Schiit LOKIUS in my headphone system and it's very useful in tailoring the sound of each HEADPHONE that I use to my preference.
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@tlcocks
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.
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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 ..
...
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 ...😁
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.
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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?
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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
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/ported-speaker-mod-drinking-straws-cut-to-length-in-port.912757/
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
«In these enclosures, the rear radiation is utilised to boost the bass response below the loudspeaker driver’s resonant frequency. The combination of the enclosure volume and the vent length and diameter form a Helmholtz resonator, which (when done properly) reinforces the low frequency response without creating excessive bass and/or poor transient response.»
@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?
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@mahgister oh Dang! on my request
I guess my skin is thicker than yours? : )
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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 ...😁😉😊
@mahgister oh Dang! on my request
I guess my skin is thicker than yours? : )
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“Indeed, Chord’s new proprietary 104-bit processor has opened the Mojo 2 up to a smattering of new features”
It’s in there. Can you now address the query? 104 bit vs 64 bit? Just processing superiority of one methodology vs the other, stripping away the rest.
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To all claiming to chase the unobtainable unicorn, you can get good enough with the right high end AND processing choices. Case in point. My small family of 3 had the good fortune to experience NY Phil play Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in the relatively new and well reviewed David Geffen Hall in NYC last Xmas. Once home, I pulled up the soundtrack on Qobuz and played it. Made some quick Charter Oak PEQ1 treble and bass adjustments until it sounded most realistic to me. Then put my 15 year old son (who produces music) and my wife (who heard the treble spike on my Fostex) in front of the system. Played at approximate level as our live experience. Within a minute or two both of them said wow it sounds like the real thing. I asked if much of anything was lost over the real thing and their answer was a resounding no! Guys, the right studio analog hardware EQ gets you closer as one piece of the puzzle than each of the other myriad of variables expounded upon so eloquently here. Obviously address all or as many of the other solutions as are needed. But my way is biggest bang for the buck. I will keep exploring though. That’s the fun of the hobby. I truly believe the magic analog air band puts one closest to the mythical unicorn. I swear by it. I put as many in front of my system as I can and get the same kind of wow statements every time.
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Am though impressed as heck with the knowledge base of some of you guys😊
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Another anecdote. My wife is Peruvian. We had a couple visiting from Peru and the husband was a lover of mountain folk music as well as the Mexican rock band Mana. I played some of the first by his guidance on Qobuz. He was deeply impressed by the realism and natural timbre he heard. Then played Mana MTV Unplugged. I very well recorded live acoustic set that we both knew well. He and his wife were practically in tears raving about how good it sounded. They both asked me to toggle on and off the EQ. Both said they could believe the improvement it made. The wife did finally say after 3 songs that she was ready to go outlet mall shopping with husband, as planned. She got a little upset with the husband because he refused to get up off the couch and go until the record was over. Don’t knock it til you try it.
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Both said they could NOT believe, above. Sorry. Don’t know how to edit
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@tlcocks
Your link set off my virus alarm.
Let's assume 104 bits is correct. The DEQX has a 64 bit floating point processor. Regular processors like the one that is in your Mojo can only work in integers. Floating point processors can calculate down to infinitely small fractions. This gives them much higher accuracy and with DSP a much higher dynamic range. The higher dynamic range is essential in DSP to maintain decent resolution at low volumes and to prevent boosting filters from clipping. They are also a lot more expensive and run hot, too hot for a small unit like the Mojo. Against any floating point processor the additional bits in the Mojo do not mean much as the formats it is working with are either 32, 24 or 16 bits as it can only generate a fixed number of values, whereas the floating point processor can generate an infinite number of values.
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It is difficult to describe what state of the art imaging sounds like. Obviously, we are all use to hearing our own systems and how they perform. Many of us think they sound really good. Stereo system imaging is for all intents and purposes a surrealistic characteristic and not commonly heard in live performances. Only a live acoustic performance can generate such an image under the right circumstances. Thus many of us have not experienced this type of imaging. It is something you have to experience. What does being Tasered feel like? You have to be tased to know. The problem for audiophiles is getting to that level of imaging performance is really hard. Having EQ capability is a vital part of it as no two identical speakers have the same amplitude curves and they have to be identical to generate the best image.
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Very interesting. Rob Watts has answered questions like this and has made himself very available on head fi. Will take this to there.
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@mijostyn
ive directly compared treble boost on neutron music player (also 64 bit processing) with Charter Oak analog. I liked treble better on CO in this scenario as well. Is neutron music player’s processing as resolving as DEQX?
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Stereo system imaging is for all intents and purposes a surrealistic characteristic and not commonly heard in live performances.
I underline the word i will comment about imaging ...
It is true to say "surrealistic" because because ANY stereo system at ANY price is defective because of inevitable crosstalk between the two speakers ...There is a loss of spatial information ...It is a fact in acoustics ...
Only the BACCH filters of Choueiri can correct this defect ...No need to own one to read his acoustics papers and understand why this is so by the way ...
I decreased a bit my crosstalk level mechanically with my small speakers on my desk and the imaging improved a lot ... I keep this not esthetical device between the speakers so good it is now ...I cannot recommend it as a permanent device but for an experiment ...Then i verified what Choeuri talk about ...
I know pretty well what a good imaging is with my AKG K340 , because of their acoustic resonators and their two cells which act as speakers +subs, their imaging is better by a great margin over any other headphone i listened too ...No comparison with my 2 Stax, nor my magneplanar nor with any of my others dynamics one ...
Then my dear mijostyn i doubt that your system with no crosstalk DSP correction as the BACCH filters , i doubt that your experience of imaging make you the expert on this because you own a good EQ system ...And because as you said no true audiophile own headphones which is preposterous claim in itself especially when we know what some headphone can do a few TOP among them ...
And i remember you claimed in a post above that among the 4 better system you heard in all your life the first was set together without pro EQ and by randomness and no knowledge of audio by your friend at the times ... The meaning of this anecdote say a lot about your imaging expertise to me ...
It is impossible to experience a very good imaging by chance in a living room with speakers system picked by someone knowing nothing in audio ... There is too low probabilities ....
i never experienced a good imaging before understanding a bit not only of acoustics basic but electrical and mechanical control of the system workings and even more less well known facts about audio system ... And it was true when i listen the other audio system i listened too from average people not bothered by acoustics using even magnepan system ...
There is imaging the average imaging , and there is a more pin pointed and better distributed imaging in space with some holograohic volume for each instruments , and there is the BACCH filters more perfect imaging and spatial soundfield making good headphone and good speakers no more distinctive in their spatial acoustic qualities ... i never experienced myself the BACCH filters this is easy to imagine if you dare to read what it do and if you experiment with a mechanical even slight decrease in crosstalk as i did or if you go from speakers to TOP headphone where there is less crosstalk effect spatial information increase a lot as with my AKG K340 ...
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@mijostyn
i found the following post on Head Fi by Rob Watts himself. Founder of Chord Electronics:
”PC's normal calculation is by 64b floating point (FP). There are serious perception problems with floating point as it innately creates noise floor modulation (and other problems too) - and even though the modulation is technically very small, it has in my opinion very serious subjective consequences. This is the primary reason why many Mojo 2 users have commented very favourably on the improved sound quality of Mojo 2's UHD DSP against conventional EQ. In my case I use aggressively noise shaped fixed point architecture, and this innately has absolutely zero noise floor modulation. Going from 64b FP to 128b FP will get you closer, and 256b FP almost converges to fixed point noise shaped operation.
But to say that solves the limitations of windowing is just plain incorrect. The wrong algorithm creating transient timing errors will always be the wrong approach irrespective of calculation accuracy.”
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Sounds to me like Rob would disagree with you.
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The short second paragraph quoted also suggests that digital EQ just isn’t all the way there yet. The treble frequencies are hardest to EQ right, and while I’m no electrical engineer I’d be willing to bet they’re the one section of the frequency band that digital still doesn’t do justice to in a boost situation.
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My approach to all this would remain digital for room correction (mids down). Digital or analog for bass tone shaping/ bass boost. ANALOG ONLY for treble tone boost.
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EQ alone cannot give perfect natural timbre experience ...Physical acoustics is needed too ...
EQ alone cannot give perfect imaging and spatial soundfield without timbre degradation .. Physical acoustic here is needed too but is unsufficient ...We need BACCH filters crosstalk correction because all stereo system sound unnatural because of crosstalk ...Dr. Choueiri claims and proved experimentally ...
Now between EQ methods be it digital or analog, be it mechanical or electronical , there is differences that are not purely technical but related to the way we may and must use human hearings in audio controls ... Psycho-acoustics studies are not purely grounded in A.I. yet,😁 then human hearings is the object of study and had not be replaced yet even and must have the first and last word governing DSP applications ...
This imply that EQ so useful it can be can never be enough ...
The Fourier linear maps cannot be confused with the human hearing territory so useful they can be as a tool and they are for sure ...The map is not and never will be the territory...
All that above is why your post and experience and opinion could make sense to me ...
My approach to all this would remain digital for room correction (mids down). Digital or analog for bass tone shaping/ bass boost. ANALOG ONLY for treble tone boost.
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“The problem with 64 bit floating point is that as the signal gets smaller, the resolution changes, and this creates noise floor modulation. OK so we are talking about over 300dB of innate resolution, but this is subjectively significant noise floor modulation and is audible. Moreover, as a signal disappears into the noise floor, it will be treated differently whether there are larger signals present or not. Now you may argue that these errors are very small but at the end of the day, it's about sound quality, and to me these errors are very significant subjectively. And you only need to look at the Mojo 2 thread to see the very positive comments about the EQ compared to traditional 64b FP EQ.
Additionally, a very important feature is the EQ running at 705/768 or 16FS with all the internal nodes being noise shaped. Without the noise shaping, I would need much more bit depth than 104 bits. This could turn into a significant design problem for me when doing EQ for pro audio. If they process at 192k or greater, I can use noise shaping; but doing EQ completely transparently at 44.1k could be a major headache. Incidently, the benefit of noise shaping the internal truncation errors is that the filter still functions for signals well below the bit depth of the system, as errors are never lost - just re-cycled.”
@mijostyn the above is just released post by Rob Watts himself on Watts Up?… thread on Head Fi in which he responds directly to my query…and to you most importantly, as I pasted what you said there
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“So Robb. Can I infer here that digital is not all the way there yet when it comes to tonally adding a treble boost, as compared with best studio analog hardware? Specifically talking about treble boost here, the “air band” “
The above is my follow up query to Rob Watts. I will post his response as soon as it becomes available.
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His response is interesting:
”I am afraid I don't know the answer to that for sure - apart from knowing conventional EQ is subjectively flawed. I know a lot of recording engineers prefer analogue desks (using DACs and ADCs with analogue EQ), saying they sound better. How much is down to preferring distortion, or how much is down to digital EQ being poor, I don't know. I suspect it's a mixture of both.
Treble EQ is much easier than bass EQ, as the bi-quad coefficients are large values. The largest problems occur with bass - some of the coefficients are very small. So that small value once truncated and then fed back creates significant errors that then accumulate. With IIR filters, the signal is infinitely fed back (hence IIR meaning infinite impulse response). But if the signal is truncated away to zero, then the IIR is no longer functioning as a filter for that signal.”
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If anyone wants to see this it’s at Head Fi. Thread entitled Watts Up…?
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“EQ alone cannot give perfect natural timbre experience ...Physical acoustics is needed too ...”. agreed!!
@mahgister , I have not by any stretch been ignoring your keen and excellent insights. I am just hyper focused on the one aspect of this discussion, namely digital vs analog EQ and where each works best.
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“Treble may be easier in a digital EQ implementation environment (from a programming viewpoint? I am only a tweaking audiophile, no engineer. But from my perspective on the hi fi playback end, treble EQ in its final sonic resultant SQ is HARDER to get right. I spent years to find the best audiophile listening solution to rolled off treble recordings. Your Mojo 2 is the best digital solution I’ve ever heard. Will you be implementing it in pricier desktop non portable designs? The best analog solution for treble roll off for me for the last 10 years remains a Charter Oak PEQ-1 in both my loudspeaker chain and my headphone chain. It leaves the whole frequency spectrum unmolested while creating the most beautiful air lifts that really breathe life into the appropriate recording. I think the studio engineers quite honestly are on to something.”
Above is my response to Rob Watts
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