Using eq to make your music new again

[Alrainbow]

Using Eq to make your music sound all new again !!!


in rolling tubes and trying various eq settings I have found many hidden sounds in my beloved music. In the past this has happened with various headphones and amps for them.

What really is going on is EQ allowing a change in the overall balance. I know we all and me included look for perfect balance.

And some claim to know when it is balanced
And I think there right. Except for what we think is right. Some of this may be taste but I think it's more of we each hear a bit different.

Having said that how many hear would even consider an eq even though all analog has them built in to tape and vinyl. A little eq puts a whole new twist on our music

It can completely change staging
Too from front to back and side to side. For me to hear my music Ina an all new light. Going from my main rig to my truck it's the same. I sometimes hear new sounds
in ruby Tuesday there is a chello that groans through out the song. But give a little of the right eq pushes it forward and chages micks vocals.

There was a day when we all had tone controls at one point three of them. Now we have none and not even a balance control. I am just wondering does anyone else feel this way.

[jcmusic]

I use Eq in my system but only to adjust for the room. I listen to music over a flat frequency response it seems well balanced to me. I use REW to attain these results...

[Alrainbow]

REW ?

[JackD201]

Was it Peter Walker who said there is the right volume for every song or something like that? So simple but so deep .

In my case I always use EQ for background music. I have a preprogrammed preset on my laptop. When I'm doing solo listening I just change the volume.

[cpp]

REW ?

https://www.roomeqwizard.com/

works great for free once you get yourself a mic.

[Goheelz]

I seem to have voted with my equipment choices: McIntosh C2300 pre with tone controls (used judiciously) and Vandersteen 5A loudspeakers with bass equalization and other tone controls built in. Real world situations (actual rooms) suggest a need for adjustments such as these, not all of which can be accomplished with other room treatments.

[Alrainbow]

As for room adjustments I have a Deqx HDP4. While it does some good it also removes some air and emotional contrast. Maybe I need to live with it for a while to judge.
It tends to increase clarity with some eq in a way

[garylkoh]

Al, that's what mastering is all about. However, as Bernie Grundman told me, "It is just as important not to do too much as it is not to do too little". If you had mastering tools such as this one:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Portico2MBP

You can widen as well as deepen your soundstage and bring the soloist forward or recess him/her backwards. However, all these are artificial tools and may result in listening fatigue.

[Bruce B]

I know for a while, Christian was using a Millennia NSEQ-4 to adjust for his taste. Great piece of kit, since I have one in the studio as well!!

[Alrainbow]

I agree it's good for one track but bad for others. I feel rolling tubes in my dac allows me to make chages that still remain pleasing over a more wider musical range.

[JCOConnell]

the equalizer circuitry itself may do more harm than what help it may achieve

[Alrainbow]

Your correct but the purpose of this post is to show how eq can change the perspective of a song.
I make no claims for all to use it and we Audio people are tightly held to perfection of equality in our setups.
Eq also can help a bad sounding track sound good
I was just wondering who or how many have ever tried it.
Playback of digital makes this so easy. J river has cool eq function to enable and disable.

[rockitman]

I know for a while, Christian was using a Millennia NSEQ-4 to adjust for his taste. Great piece of kit, since I have one in the studio as well!!

I still have it. I only use it on live recorded music when necessary. Anything from the studio labels....99% of the time, I don't touch. I prefer true to the source. It's in a tape loop on my XS pre so it's never in the main audio chain listening circuit.

[jcmusic]

Ok guys I use Eq to correct the room not the music, there is a big difference!!! I want to listen to music over a flat frequency response and to do that you must fix the room... Bass traps FRZ panels Difuzzers, EQ, etc... There is all sorts of room treatments Eq is just one of them, for those who have not treated their rooms you are probably hearing a lot boom and don't even know.. Because we have heard it all our lives and most have not heard corrected bass or a room treated for proper bass...

[Rust]

I've rewritten this twice to be less of a disjointed rant with marginal success so....

Equalization can be viewed as a two part process. One is to correct in room response. The other is to correct for perceived tonal deficiencies in the recording. Face it, not all recordings are pristine audiophile fare. All too often recordings suffer from ham-fisted mastering and production so a little judicious equalization can make a poor recording of a good performance much more listenable. Sometimes when listening to records that were supposedly RIAA, they sound better with an alternative equalization. I wonder if the equipment was not all that accurate to begin with, the monitors used were that bad or if whoever was at the controls was just tone deaf.

This is one area where digital has it all over analog. Even something like the little Astell and Kern portable digital player has twenty bands of 0.1 dB of equalization available.

I've been listening to a recording where the female lead is way too far forward in the mix which makes the recording hot in the mid and upper mid range. The orchestral underpinnings are lost in the mix at low volume and it is just too hot to be played much louder as is. Judicious use of tone controls alleviate this to a degree. I'll grant they remove a little life from the recording but taken as a whole it is an improvement.

A recording needs to be played at a level where it creates an appropriate sound field for that particular recording. Maybe it's that "palpable" thing I keep reading about, to me meaning an immersive sound field that envelopes the listener. If tonal control helps a recording reach that level what's not to like.

As a final thought, lack of the ability to achieve L-R balance somewhere in the reproductive chain IMO is just plain stupid. There are a few recordings in my collection where the left channel is mildly missing in action and the balance control centers things up to where they should be.