I've yet to find an equalizer that doesn't add hiss or noise. I am familiar with the Schiit equalizer you mentioned. I tried one and got rid of it the same day! It had to be placed far away from other components or it would cause hum. It also put out excessive audible noise/ hiss whenever you turned the dials too far clockwise. If noise and hiss is a concern to you, a digital equalizer would be the answer, but those are very expensive and not really a necessity if your equipment and your room are right.
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.
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Not considering remote, Skyline is just as easy to use, sounds completely transparent, and honestly gives a more hi fi take on bass and treble with more flexibility there. I’d say with 2 db cuts here and there and not much boost elsewhere the two units sound very similar. They are set up similarly as well. Both simple to use. But if you wanna add fun factor V shape for average older and newer rock recordings then Skyline wins. |
There is simply nothing made anywhere from pro audio or home audio that comes close to ease of tonal tweaking provided by the excellently designed Max...a great item that's I've used for far more than 20 minutes (a few months actually), and it's performed brilliantly. Great reviews generally everywhere, including from me. It cuts and boosts wherever I need it to, looks great, makes no noise. I've used pro EQ for many decades in studios, live concert mixing, and home recording and the Max fits in my hifi system beautifully. Nothing will replace it anytime soon. |
Ok…impressions of Skyline vs Charter Oak in my HP chain, which is X Sabre 3 balanced streamer/ dac > EQ > Headamp GSX Mini > balanced out to Hifiman HE1000SE. The Skyline sounds great. The mids are resolute and fully saturated and accurate. Well recorded music is an absolute joy with this piece. With well recorded music and gentle EQ you might get a better experience than CO, although I’d be razor thin. Now with loudness wars over compressed rock music I tend to EQ in more bass and treble. In this scenario I would describe the Skyline as quite capable delivering the goods. The SUB and 40HZ dials do their job well. Quality and quantity of bass added is very satisfying without sacrificing the mids. And the attenuation dial on far left and clipping meter leds work great. There is a broad range on that dial that sounds good, so it’s very useful in a master trim situation when boosts have been applied and it’s needed. Kudos. The Atmosphere shelves are wonderful and all sound great with even vigorous boost without adversely affecting the mids. This unit has TONS of headroom for clean boost. Now, in comparing this unit to CO with more aggressive use of bass and treble dials, I find that the CO treble bands are absolutely gorgeous, and to me just sound more textured and shimmery and sweet. But not by a lot. But yes by a lot compared to Loki Max. Schiit users, again, don’t go for any kind of sizable treble boost. And y’all probably don’t. Skyline and CO hands down beat Loki in that limited use case. In comparing bass dials on Skyline to CO, I’d double down on yesterday’s comments. Bass articulate and very good, but not as textured, layered, nuanced as CO and not as much sub bass kick or mid bass slam. The CO does this better. In conclusion, I like the Skyline very well for very well recorded modern recordings where you wouldn’t need to boost bass or treble much or at all. But as I type and listen to Red book version of Rush album Moving Pictures, through the Skyline it’s excellent sonically but I am left wanting to put the CO back in the chain. It’s not more resolute in the mids, but really no less either, to be honest. but the kick, slam in lower range and shimmer and sheen in the top octave I can get out of the CO leaves me more pleased for your average older rock recording. My original Mike Deming CO remains on top of the hill for me, Skyline is a wonderful piece. It’s beautifully finished and built like a tank too. |
@mirolab , can you explain why my custom grounded Cardas XLR to RCA cables work for CO, Millennia, and Avalon (all strictly pro +4dbu balanced) but not with the Skyline? Is that not bizarre? Jason at Revive Audio said it’s “something about the topology of the circuitry in the Skyline.” ?? |
That’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinion. I’d avoid words like “nonsense “. There are nicer ways to disagree. We all have extensive listening experience, and some have extensive pro recording experience. Let’s respect each other. @wolf_garcia ive said this before. Our experiences don’t necessarily diverge. It depends on your use case. If you are cutting at 6khz to avoid sibilant recordings the Schiit products are great. However, if you are using your EQ simply like a tone control bass and or treble boost without cuts, there are many pro hardware solutions that do this better than Schiit. |
@mijostyn Your statement above tells me you have no experience in doing digital signal processing. You’ve admitted it! I have literally 100’s of plugins that do all manners of DSP, many of which are distortion. These are mostly used creatively in audio production and mixing.... In final 2-track mastering, you typically want very transparent EQ (but not always!). The problem with much of today’s music is that heavy compression and limiting ARE used on the final 2-bus, or stereo mix. I think it’s heavily overused. But I’ve spent literally thousands of hours staring at audio waveforms, editing them, and processing them.... so YES, I very much understand DSP, and what a single sample (a number) represents, and what a stream of samples represents. If I change one number in the stream, the number is not distorted, but the waveform IS now distorted (when compared to the original). @tlcocks So glad you got the Skyline working! YES it is a balanced PRO level device... not level as in quality, but level as in +4dBu rather than consumer -10dBV. Since I use it in my studio, it’s not such an issue, but right now I am using a +4 balanced to -10 unbalanced cable that I made, with 3 resistors to bring it down, and "unbalance" it. I commented to Vintage Audio years ago that they should make a consumer version of the Skyline and market it to vinyl lovers.
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@jtcf +1. Very nice. That’s exactly what I love with my McIntosh MQ112. |
@tlcocks Glad to hear the Skyline is working out for you:-) @veerossi I received my Lokius today. I really had my doubts it was going to do what I wanted,which is to tone down the shrill upper mids in some recordings. The kind that make your ear canals vibrate.Damned if it didn't work! I turned the 6kh down a couple of clicks and cranked up Led Zeppelin III.Robert Plant sounded fantastic.It didn't lower the volume or soften it,it just eliminated it like it never existed.That's all I needed.Tomorrow will be all about shrill violins and such:) |
BuT…having more power and less dial change is generally a good thing. Much like proper amplification and having that “power reserve “ leads to better saturation and SQ. @wolf_garcia , you are just hell bent on insulting me because I don’t like your Schiit EQ. |
Got 30 minutes turning dials. CO bass bands more powerful with more slam. Bass weak records on HEKse can turn sub and 40hz dials almost all the way to get the same slam and tactility as CO with much less dialed in. Oh, also the treble and bass bands are better than Loki Max. Much more tomorrow. Gotta go to dinner with family now. |
“Avalon AD2055, Millennia nseq4, and my own Charter Oak all sound unbelievable in home playback “ But this Skyline isn’t working. Have informed Jason at Revive. The problem is half volume and distortion. Funny these cables work for all of the above pieces. Will put the Skyline in my all balanced HP chain and try there. To be continued… |
Did that for my unbalanced Bryston tape loop. Cardas custom wired the pins (pseudo balanced) and works perfectly with no distortion and no need for an additional box. Once had a Aphex converter box in the beginning. The Cardas custom cable without the additional extra box obviously is the correct solution and sounds of course WAY better. |
“ Hi Tim, I just had a conversation with the last purchaser of the M3D. He is having a mismatch issue as he is using Phono level into a +4 device that is causing distortion. He initially assured me he had a converter but in fact does not. I wanted to give you a heads up that these are a +4 Professional level balanced device. Using Phono level into this will cause a huge impedance mismatch and level difference that will result in distortion so you will need to find something to convert it. Jason @ Revive Audio LLC”
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I was shopping a while for a Schiit Loki Max, but ended up trying the Schiit Lokius instead. I only need a tiny touch of EQ and this did the job nicely. I did some a/b with and without the Lokius in the signal path. There is degridation in the sound, but it’s really minimal. If you don’t have a highly resolving system, you probably won’t even notice it. I ended up taking it out since tube rolling ended up getting me where I wanted to be without having to EQ, but will still swap it in once in a while. If you don’t want to pump out the $ for the Max, get the Lokius. I’m using the balanced connection BTW and it's dead quiet. |
It is so true that analog/digital coupling is fundamental that one of the greatest genius in A. I. just published a paper about self learning artificial consciousness self learning without human programming and they are analog machine first and foremost ... Digital is a tool not a ground ... The territory cannot be mapped nor the map cannot became the territory save in an organism able to go from one to the other levels at will without being prisoner of one level ... Analog and digital are both fundamental in their own way ...We need a tool as we need a ground ( our body is the two at the same time ) .. These complementarity is even at the basis of mathematics with Grothendieck teachings as it is with meanings and semiotics with Peirce teachings and at the basis of all symbolic forms with Cassirer teachings ... |
Mirolab is right ... As usual mijostyn conflate the Fourier map and the territory of hearing ... Signal processing is grounded in psycho-acoustics research not the reverse ...The ears /brain science rule the technology modalities not the reverse ... "DistortionS" in the analog flow is at the plural , not at the singular, some are welcome others not so much ... And the linear design of a non distorting optimal electronical component is not the same as the design of our non linear ears/brain workings ... it is why psycho-acoutics exist to study and to bridge the gap ... We cannot decipher timbre with only numbers by the way we need ears/brain ... Even Choueri DSP filters so revolutionary they are are grounded in psycho-acoustics measurements of the non digital non linear brain -ears/head.. The brain work at complex simultaneous levels between analog and digital flows of translation and filterings in the two directions at the same time and this at way lower levels than the neurons , only mijostyn brain work perfectly in a singular digital linear way as a chip it seems .. I apologize for my bad joke ... It was too tempting ...😉 |
And you obviously do not understand digital signal processing. A number has meaning, distortion does not. That number represents amplitude, nothing else. When you change that number you change amplitude in a specific way. Distortion in meaningless. DSP changes the numbers in specified patterns to achieve a specific result. Can you change the numbers to replicate distortion? I'm not sure although I do not see why not. A number can not be distorted, it can only be changed. Analog? It is essential only because that is what our ears understand. The only components that should operate in analog are speakers and perhaps amplifiers. Everything else is way better off operating in digital. Good examples are broadcast radio and the cell phone. Compare Sirius radio to standard radio, old analog cell vs what we have now. People who think analog signal processing is better are stuck at about 1981. As you yourself have just described, you can go almost anywhere with DSP and not necessarily in good ways. That is up to the programmer. |
@mijostyn Yikes! THAT’s your defense of DSP superiority?? Then clearly you misunderstand what a digital stream is representing. The numbers are describing the analog waveform, and if you CHANGE the numbers, you are by definition, DISTORTING the resulting waveform. The numbers ARE the waveform! You can change the numbers in a perfectly linear fashion, as in simply changing the amplitude of the entire signal (gain, volume) --OR-- the stream of numbers can be fed through very complex equations that perform filtering operations on the signal (EQ). These equations can work really well, or really poorly. I’ve heard good ones, and certainly bad ones. There’s many many types of filtering algorithms, with new ones being devised all the time. Some are intentionally colored and vintage sounding, and some are clean and transparent. |
“Yes, I understand that @mahgister but when we hear envelopment or surround dispersal of the 3 D soundstage but it’s coming from 2 front speakers it’s still the brain being tricked.” everything we hear ultimately is two channels. Our right and left ears. Our brain deciphers cues based the difference between what the right and left ears hear. There are three main factors. Arrival time, amplitude and the head transfer function. Stereo cross talk messes up those cues by leaking those cues to the opposing ears. BACCH SP corrects that. So it actually is the only playback system that *isnt* a trick. And you can demonstrate the extraordinary accuracy of the system by using the in ear microphones to record someone at various positions in the room and then playing back that recording. It’s nuts. 100% accurate. |
You will see that scottwheel is right on this and he own it ...😊 Me i was only able to read the Choueiri science paper ... it is convincing when we know what Choueiri talk about... I made some simple mechanical experiment with crosstalk already and so imperfect and with no comparison at all with designed filters it is it was amazing ... Me i will buy it when i could even without hearing it with no doubt ...be happy and feel lucky to be able to hear it...
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Yes, I understand that @mahgister but when we hear envelopment or surround dispersal of the 3 D soundstage but it’s coming from 2 front speakers it’s still the brain being tricked. Simply because you don’t have all these performers surrounding you in the room. You have two front left and right speakers. but I get what you’re saying. Anyway for this software to do what it’s supposed to do but still meet the toughest audiophile standards for SQ is a tough challenge! Can’t wait to hear. |
It is the stereo system that trick our brain because they are all flawed ... The BACCH filters DSP dont trick the brain , it help the brain to recover spatial musical information which is already there in the room and in the recording in particular but is lost by the crosstalk effect ... Then this DSP help the brain to do his natural working... Because as said Choueri when we listen a bird in nature singing , there is one bird ,not two as in stereo ...
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We are all perfectionists, or we wouldn’t be here. It is amazing to me that the digital algorithms have advanced so far that we can “trick” our brains, OUR brains, not the average casual listener brain, that well. One would expect we would hear SOME form of err or seeming misrepresentation, be it timbre related, or phase temporal blur, image specificity or what have you. Just the slightest SOMETHING. That we’ve come that far creating this enveloping 3-D with 2 channels is amazing. |
“Still have concerns about that much digital processing of the original signal. There’s something elegant and simple about keeping signal pure followed by high end dac and augmenting with high end analog EQ. It’s simple and elegant.”
I get that. But since you are going to audition it you will hear first hand what it does. One thing I want to point out is that despite some claims to the effect, it is not a gimmick that wows in the short term only to grow old. It will wow you. But it will wow you so much that it will also send up a red flag. Will it stand up in the long run or is it just about the wow factor? It only wows us because it corrects such a severe problem with stereo. In the long run it becomes clear that it is an essential part of state of the art audio. There is no going back. |
It seems absurd to argue that digital EQ as close to perfection as it gets while analog is “Stone Age,” way flawed, when we’re still arguing about whether digital playback has caught up to vinyl playback in SQ. The base digital file has ALWAYS been flawed compared to analog reel to reel or vinyl. It’s therefore preposterous to argue that altering that code with post production digital EQ is so obviously superior to post production analog EQ. |
So Mike , consider the following: instrument played in studio (psychoacoustics “right”, SQ perfect > recorded with conversation to digital code, an approximation/ representation of real world sine waves heard > complex human construct digital algorithms applied to radically change the code representation of the signal > digital to analog conversion back to real world waveform > amp to ears =… psychoacoustics and SQ “right” again? logically, does this make any sense? Sounds like quite a trick to pull off! |
Digital Signal purity is not the ultimate goal in acoustics... Signal purity is an abstraction...Not the acoustic territory ... The ears brain is not a mere digital computer ... The analog measures Choueiri takes are not secondary , they are the core of the thing for using his filters for specific ears/brain ... About analog, and the superiority of analog computing in the next decade read that( i underline my point ) : https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2634-4386/ad0fec/pdf «Deep learning computers are revolutionizing human This Indian genius is the first to prove the quantum properties conservation and transmission in microtubules.. He work in japan laboratory and is the main co worker with Hameroff the microtubules specialist and co-worker with Penrose Nobel physics prize and the creator of the ORCH model of consciousness ,, He wrote a book astonishing one in 2020 , one of the deepest and more revolutionary i ever read..."nanobrain" ... Then it is not amateurish speculation ... Go see his site and youtube channels and twitter ... Geniuses are not a crowd ...
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To me it’s hard to imagine that complex algorithms imposed upon an already digitized analog hearing world is PERFECT and immune to human psycho acoustic problems in perception. But I’m open minded and will listen to both DEQX and BACCH. @tattooedtrackman , I guess you, I , Miro, and McIntosh are all audiophool idiots. |
“Analog is the enemy of signal purity. Again, most music is recorded digitally. Keeping it there until the final conversion to analog at the listeners DAC is the only best way to deal with it. A number can not be distorted. It can only be changed. ” Again, best analog solutions are NOT any such enemy. Only help to restore rolled off textures and harmonics. Mike, please stop bashing analog EQ when you haven’t tried it in years. It’s come along as well as digital. Look at McIntosh with its new MQ112. Cmon…please stop. |