Go get out your pitchforks, I’ve done a sacrilegious thing. . .


. . . I’ve added an EQ!

A Loki Max to be exact - and so far, I love it!

I believe in the purist approach for the most part, and I have a main system that that’s all about, but this system, this is my fun house system, but my room acoustics are not great in my living room.  But that doesn’t mean I want crap sound in it either. The wife won’t let me treat the room, but frankly, that isn’t even the main reason I did it. 

The system is basically Klipsch Forte III’s, Balanced Audio VX 3ix pre-amp, ARC balanced V35 tube amp, Bifrost 2 DAC getting sound from a Marantz ND8006 streamer.  I put the EQ between the DAC and the preamp.

It’s dead quiet, and I can’t discern the difference in bypass mode either. 
 

I figured it’s was a lot easier, and cheaper, to add this one component and get the exact sound I want versus going through a bunch of cables or changing out other equipment. 

Soundstage is great, and there doesn’t paper to be any aberrations, but keep in mind this isn’t the most reveling system, another reason I wasn’t too worried about adding an EQ.

All in all, a good investment and make my music more enjoyable!

 

 

last_lemming

@last_lemming forgive my lame attempt at humor.  I did not realize trying tone controls was so effing serious.

Why didn't you get the MAX?

IMO, @audnacious hit the nail squarely on the head, and very succinctly, too:

"A man must have his tools to correct that which needs adjustment."

The more tools you have at your disposal, the better job you can do, regardless of  the task.

No biggie. I got the max because the system is quite nice just as it is and to go and change out a piece of equipment to make a tweak to the sound would be a high stakes (read priced) gamble at this point since I can end up spending thousands and the sound quality might only move laterally once I got the piece of equipment in the house. This isn’t my main critical listening rig, it’s just the rig that I wanna have good tone in timber while I’m doing chores around the house or doing the dishes or having company over; so absolute nuance in timing and soundstage is not required, so I figured, based on the information I had read, at this piece would do what I needed it to do which is tweak specific areas of the frequency response to bring it in line with what I wanted given my limitations. 
 

for instance, I could’ve bought some really expensive cables for the price I paid for the max, and that might’ve worked perfectly, however if I ever move, or ever relocate the equipment , or by another source, I would basically have to start the tweaking process all over again. But with the max it’s just a few tweaks in a few minutes and back to where I was. 

@sns 

I’d only find system EQ valuable if changing settings by individual recording.

Yep. I put a 10 band eq in my system in the 80’s. It caused my Sound Man exp to kick in and almost worked me to death fine tuning every album and sometime different songs. I took it out of the chain within a month and sold it.

But if the OP likes it, then fine with meand I wish him well.........after the flogging 😀

I use a Bellari EQ570 in my system with JBL L100 Classics and a single SVS2000 pro sub.  It has tamed the JBL to my room acoustics and the system is really “fun” to listen to.  I have had this setup for 1 1/2 years and never tire of it.  Running a Mac MA6600 integrated.