ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
I stream my digital music from itunes on my macbook through a Musical Fidelity DAC and then into my system - I stumbled across the equaliser and had a play with the settings and wow it really opened up the sound from the normal flat settings. Of course to some people flat is best and graphic equalisers are a definite no no.
One advantage i did find was that some of the french albums I have always sound muted with vocals in the midrange and by tweaking just a tiny bit they sound much clearer - ok now how intended but better to me on my speakers. I listen mainly to vinyl and use a valve preamp so most likely my ears are conditioned to a more analogue type sound.
Has anyone else had a play with the equaliser and any comments? Searching on the net there are a lot of people recommending their perfect settings and I tried a few which didn't sound right to me so just goes to show how subjective it can all be.
Truly there is no substitute for trial and error -- which is made difficult by the !@#$% annoying *delay* in the equalizer sliders taking effect. Even the On/Off checkbox smoothes thru the setting back to flat rather than taking immediate effect! Sheesh.
Nobody has the same system, or (especially) the same room & speaker placement, the same audiologist's graph/curve of their hearing, even the same tilt of the head in front of their speakers! If you were using headphones, and the *same* headphones as the other person, then you might like what they plugged in (modulo your respective ages and possibly industrial noise exposure).
The only good thing about the iTunes equalizer panel is that it is working on the digital signal, before the Mac shoots it out to your DAC. If you wanted a fancy toy, the MiniDSP model which also runs digital-to-digital, between your Mac and your DAC, might be fun to play with. If you're curious about what "flat" really sounds like, get the Dirac Live model (DDRC-22D) and let it measure your room & speakers for you. But then making it sound like what *you* want is still trial and error, so except for experimental fun, you might as well use the iTunes one.
Completely agree - I use M100 speakers in a relatively small room, so being able to boost some of the frequencies just a bit gives me the sound I want - the delay in changing settings is annoying though!
No two people's perception of sound is the same,that's why there will allway's be "loony tweak" kit's and arguments about cables of course?
Equalisers (or "graphic sympathisers"?)are frowned upon by the purists,but can be a useful addition to a system.It's all about enjoying the sound surely?
You might like to try an analogue equaliser connected to the dedicated port of your B&O(? )receiver.Now that I'm rather "mutt n jeff",this has been invaluable for improving clarity.
I was also pleasantly surprised to find that "digitising" the output 'tother way via a A/dac really brought the sound particularly from Vinyl alive somehow too
Happy tinkering,but music first purism later?
Nick
Andrew: I stream my digital music from itunes on my macbook through a Musical Fidelity DAC and then into my system - I stumbled across the equaliser and had a play with the settings and wow it really opened up the sound.....
I stream my digital music from itunes on my macbook through a Musical Fidelity DAC and then into my system - I stumbled across the equaliser and had a play with the settings and wow it really opened up the sound.....
Hi Andrew,
Funny to stumble across this sort of post on here - I was just doing exactly what you described. I find the EQ a godsend and have saved several custom EQ settings. One for my headphones and another for my Beomaster 5000 and Beovox 3000 combo.
I too find the delay infuriating when trying to make fine adjustments. But it's a small price to pay for the complete transformation it's possible to bring to a whole host of old albums. (And at last all that top end can be filtered off Portishead's second album.)
Happy new year!
Hi Pepps - yes, I found that some recordings, particularly modern french ones just sounded slightly muffled almost and lacking in mid range and this fixed it - it had been bugging me for ages and now really happy with speakers and system. Others sound fine on flat so I just set the settings to the ones that I want too.
I have an analogue equaliser that I use for amateur radio - it enables me to filter out noise that I don't want so I can hear speach clearer - the digital filter on the radios cut out too much but the analgue one allows for greater control - I use S45-2s and they produce a really clear sound through the equaliser - also use them for music when I am pottering in my hobby room.