Here is the real deal hollifield question. For this question I would only like people to respond with an answer, not another question like "why does it matter?!?" ok, so im curious about the complete guide to the equalizer. What setting is best for Rap/R&B, Rock, and Alternative. When i say setting i mean exactly how much mghz or whatever for each channel, how much Q setting, if LR should be locked or it all should be unlocked, and stuff like that. I asked this question when i first got my MK1 way back in the day and the replies where quite amatuerish. Hopefully there will be some better replies. Plus maybe people can post there exact setting of there equalizer and why they chose that. Thanks all.
-Jordan
P.S. Empeg is one of the best things that has happened to my daily entertainment and enjoymant. I hope this is the same for you all. Lates.

1st Original Mark I Owner in California: Serial Number 27.

ok, so im curious about the complete guide to the equalizer. What setting is best for Rap/R&B, Rock, and Alternative. When i say setting i mean exactly how much mghz or whatever for each channel, how much Q setting, if LR should be locked or it all should be unlocked, and stuff like that.

I think you're asking the wrong question. The purpose of an equalizer isn't to change the music depending on genre. An equalizer with presets for "Rock", "Jazz", and "Classical" is missing the whole point of an equalizer.

An equalizer, as its name implies, is for equalizing the differences between the way the music was recorded and the way the music is being played back. Its purpose is to compensate for the quirks of your particular equipment and your listening environment. When used correctly, an equalizer should help make your stereo sound more like the mixing equipment that was used to produce the original recording.

For instance, you would use an equalizer to compensate for an unnatural low-midrange peak in your car speakers. Or to boost the response of a weak set of tweeters. Or to curtail certain frequencies of an overly-boomy subwoofer. The goal would be to produce a realistic and pleasing frequency response across the whole spectrum.

You would also use an equalizer to compensate for changes in your listening environment. The space where the music is played can have almost as much of an effect on the sound as the speakers themselves. A high-frequency reflection off the windshield could be corrected with an equalizer, for example.

But once you've got everything "dialed in", you wouldn't generally switch settings when you went from Rap to Jazz. If you've got a good system, and the EQ is doing its job, all genres should sound equally good.

Now I will admit that certain albums are produced poorly. You can use an equalizer to correct that sort of thing. For instance, I have a remastered version of The Fixx's "Shuttered Room" that was pretty badly butchered in the remastering process. They boosted the high frequencies way too much, making the album sound strident, almost painfully so. Correcting this would be a good task for an equalizer. But overall, my rock albums don't need correcting, it's only this one album, and only at a specific (unique) set of frequencies.

What this means is that there's no way anyone can give you exact numbers to plug into your equalizer. Since every stereo installation is different, and every listening room (or every car interior) is different, there's no way anyone can help you adjust your EQ unless they're sitting right there in the room/car with you. It's all done by ear, and in the actual listening environment itself.

An equalizer is a tool, not an appliance. Like any tool, it requires that the operator knows how to use it. You wouldn't go to an auto parts store and say, "My car stopped running, can I buy a wrench, please? Just one wrench, the standard size."

I recommend that you experiment with the equalizer and try to make it sound good for all of the music you play in your preferred listening environment. Start with the ten-band mode with L/R locked, and don't play with the Q's right away.

Compare the sound of many different tracks, listening closely to the details of the music. Adjust the equalizer one band at a time, making sure (at least initially) to keep everything below the 0db marker. Attenuate, don't boost. If you want to have louder bass, don't increase the bass, decrease the other frequencies.

Then listen carefully for distortion in the peak bands. Once you're sure you're not distorting anything, then begin to make fine adjustments to each of the bands. Live with your adjustments for a few days, and if you hear anything that irritates your ear, correct it. At first, you will be making lots of radical changes to the EQ curves. Then it will begin to settle into something you like and you'll only be making small corrections every day or two. Finally, it'll be "dialed in" and you won't make any more corrections.

Let us know how you do.

___________
Tony Fabris

Uhhhh, Yeah. What Tony said. But with one additional clarification...

You can only tweak your EQ curves for a little while at each sitting. If you sit there and shift bands around for more than about 20 minutes at a time, you reach the stage where everything you do starts to sound good. Then the next morning you get in the car and think "My God, how could I have left it sounding as bad as that?!"

Do the really big changes first, and then leave it for a day or two, until you are convinced that yes, indeed, the tweets are too bright and the mid-bass needs emphasis. Then soften the tweets, bring up the mid-bass (just a little bit!) but don't try and make the adjustments by ear. Decide that the three mid-range bands need to come up by 2dB, and the top two treble bands need to come down by three, then do it and listen for another day or two. It will take you weeks to get it just right. When you do, be sure to write down the settings.

I use the IASCA competition tracks to set my EQ curves. I am sure that a lot of people on this bbs would be able to recommend commonly available tracks that would also be good for EQ work.

Ironically, after all the tweaking I have done with my EQ, I always end up back at the "Flat" setting (0dB straight across the board) as being the best for my system, with two exceptions: the "Pink Noise" track that IASCA uses for RTA competition; and a Vinyl LP recorded in 1961 that is full of scratches at the top end and lacking in bass response at the bottom.

You could set up a few "generic" EQ presets, called "Bass Enhance" and "Treble Enhance", doing just what the names imply. Actually, as Tony pointed out, it would be better to have them called "Treble Attenuate" and "Bass Attenuate" respectively. I have not had much luck doing this, however... attenuating the treble seemed to muffle the highs more than enhancing the lows.

Another wild-card in the game is the Loudness setting. Loudness enhances bass response, but the tricky part is that the enhancement is not linear with the volume settings. The further away from 0dB you are, the more bass enhancement you get, and the Loudness setting itself is adjustable in 1.5dB increments. Since I have my amp gains adjusted so that my player is almost always right at 0dB, my Loudness setting is pretty much ineffectual. I leave it set at 7.5 (out of 15 max) to enhance bass response when I have the volume lower than 0dB.

It can be mystifyingly complex to get the sound the way you want, with volume, loudness, and EQ all operating interactively (and on my system, L-Pads on six individual speakers, DSO options in my CD player, and a crossover network that gives me separate frequency range settings on six individual plus three pairs of speakers) but if you can just figure out the following three things, you can get a handle on it: (A) How the system works -- how do volume, loudness, EQ, distortion and any other controls you have all interact; (B) What does the system sound like now -- can you identify what you have too much of or too little of; (C) What do you have to do to correct "B". With a little thought and a lot of patience, it really can be as simple as ABC.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

ps: Welcome back to the bbs, Duranike -- where have you been hiding out for the last year? We've missed you!

Edited by tanstaafl. on 20/07/01 11:54 PM.

May I remind everyone that Doug's system is pretty advanced. The fact that his EQ sounds best when set to "Flat" is not typical.

He's already carefully compensated for quirks in his system by (a) purchasing expensive equipment that comes without as many quirks, (b) giving fine control over each component speaker's level with L-pads, and (c) crossing over everything carefully.

Most people don't spend that kind of money/time on their systems and therefore need more EQ correction than Doug needs.

But I will agree that, before you even TOUCH the equalizer, you should carefully balance your amp gains and crossover settings. Get it sounding the best you can with a flat EQ first, then use the EQ for the remaining corrections.

___________
Tony Fabris

Sounds completely right -- try to flatten/tweak/improve things as much as you can before fiddling with equalizer. Here's what I did recently with my new install (of a bunch of lower-cost, mid-brow components):

After shoehorning my install, for the princely sum of $12 U.S., I bought an Autosound 2000 test CD with a series of test tracks (30 freqs in 10 tracks) and used it (playing with flat settings through the other head unit) with a Radio Shack sound meter to baseline the stereo. I put all the measurements in a spreadsheet so you can draw bar graphs that give a better view of the response curve. I decided early on on a head unit volume/gain setting that would register fairly high DB values on the meter but not be painful for me while I measured -- on the Kenwood, that was "20".

I replaced some "bass blocker" capacitors with lower values to bring some midbassback into the front doors, then measured again -- a bit more midbass. I then adjusted the gain for stereo channels and the subwoofer channel to smooth things out again (and measured again).

I then ripped the 10 test tracks to MP3s so that I could more easily use them in the future. I put them all in an Empeg Playlist called Test/Tones and ran through them one time to compare with the last set I measured from the CD. They were pretty darn close, so I called it good. Also, under the directory Test, I created a playlist called Test/Sampler with 8-9 favorite, representative, but very varied tunes that I can run through whenever I tweak equalizer in the future.

My last adjustment was to actually get into the equalizer and bring up 3 midbass bands by just 2 notches each. It sounds pretty good and I'm going to leave it there for a while. Doug's point is very true, make too many changes in a short period and you suggestibly feel like you are improving, but you lose track and wind up in a muddle.

For all of these tests I picked a single spot -- an isolated section of the parking lot at my marina shaded a bunch of trees with very little traffic noise. Oooh, and I just got my green faceplate from Paul and I can see my display. Drove home from the marina with the Del Fuegos "Don't Run Wild" at 11. Life/weekend is good.

Jim

Then

Good Answers, me likey. Here is what i have. I have 2 12 dubs at 3 W or is it 3 M, well whatever the compettion measure is. I have top of the line speakers and 2 sony tweaters. I have 500 watt, i think, alpine amp which runs the player and my system. I might add another one later when i get more money. I dont know the exact specs on my car but the guys that intalled it are the best of the best, ie partly becuase they are from the hood and they work on a lot of cars, especially ones that compete. My bass is fine, almost too much, thats why when i listen to some more slow beat rock or whatever i cant even hear the vocal. Now i could just turn down the loudness but it doesnt always work. Im not an expert but i do have to offer that although yes there is one setting that will make anythinng sound real good, there is never for anything a setting or option that covers everything to the best. I have to believe that there can be different setting that will give me better treble or bass depending on different things. what if i just wanted to listen to my comedy, yeah it still sounds great but do i need all the background laughter in sweet loud surround sound, i think not. im still confused on pros and cons on locking LR or all or all unlocked and also Q setting. Please just give me a direct exlpanation and not vague "it depends on the system" even though it does a little bit. i know u guys wont becuase u know your stuff and u have been helpful so far. later

1st Original Mark I Owner in California: Serial Number 27.

Theyre right though, the answer depends on your system. I use the eq to cut some rattling that I have in my front door panels. If you dont understand what the q setting is, heres a well writtten explanation written by Tony.

EQ faq entry
Sean

im still confused on pros and cons on locking LR or all or all unlocked and also Q setting.

Locking L/R is simply a convenience feature. Leave it locked. The empeg's equalizer has the ability to control the left side and the right side separately. In some rare situations, you might want to unlock it so that you can EQ the left channel differently than the right. But it's so rare that I hesitate to even mention it. Usually, you want to EQ the left and the right exactly the same way.

As was mentioned before, the "Q" and bandwidth settings are explained in the FAQ forum of this BBS. However, in your case, I strongly suggest that you don't touch the Q or bandwidth settings at all. If using a plain-old equalizer is confusing you, then you've definitely got no use for the parametric functions yet.

___________
Tony Fabris

In some rare situations, you might want to unlock it so that you can EQ the left channel differently than the right.

It is possible to compensate for inequalities in the layout of the car by adjusting the left and right sides differently. The car is not symetrical, duh, and everyones' listening position is less than optimal unless you own an F1.
to account for the meter bridge (dials'n'guages bump in front of the driver), some installers boost or attenuate the frequencies on that side (apparently). There may be other irregularities in the car which requires you to unlock the left and right side, but these adjustments would only be minute.

Q is a fun thing to play with if you cannot see the frequency curve you are creating. It can be argued that it can be done, but is best left to the professionals! The default adaptive Q setting currently available is quite good and doesn't really need to be messed with.

As for what 'special' settings could be created for different types of music, it still is subjective and specific to the environment, components etc. As a 'rule', jazz can be cut back in the bass; classical could be boosted in the mids except for woodwind predominant pieces; Rock cut the mids as vocals and distorted guitars can get wearing after a while; club/techno, cut mids & slight boost to bass and tops (within the range of the EQ so you dont get digital distortion); Vocals boost upper mids and cut lower mids but it depends if it's male or female.

Adjusting EQ is totally subjective. For more information take an audio engineer course (then tell us the settings ) The important thing is that it sounds good to you and you don't get tired of listening to it. That is the first sign of bad EQ. Your ears get tired quickly and give you headaches or start ringing.
Ever go to a concert that wasn't overly loud but your ears hurt? Ever go to a bar and even though the music is loud, you can easily carry a conversation with the person next to you? Examples of bad and good EQ.

So. Play with the EQ and save settings you like. then try them out over the next week or two. see what works for different styles. This is more important than me saying what should sound good in your car, I don't have to listen to it.

That's enough from me i think. Is that some kind of record for longest thread with fewest number of posts? {whew}

Murray 06000047
I don't think, therefore I am not.