So I have been playing around again with equalizers. All in the digital domain. I have one set up in Foobar for awful bright recordings… just listening to Stray Cats Gonna Ball I ripped from CD (44.1/16)… cripes my ears bled.
I purchased a pair of Audioengine HD4s for my desk (meh..) and had to install APO EQ into Windows to tame them… I am kinda disappointed… the little plastic Creative jobs I had before sounded fine… if I had known… I hate this internet model for buying anymore.
Sooo….. I need an honest set of answers here…
1 - Do these modern digital equalizers do damage? (Like the old analog ones I had when I was younger.) If so, what kind of damage?
2 - Are all digital equalizers the same? How is APO for Windows? Foobar downloaded from their page?
From your description it sounds like you would probably not listen to that album in its native state, or if you did it would cause you some discomfort. Well, if you you adjust the EQ to the point that it does not cause you any discomfort and you get enjoyment out of listening to it with the adjustment, then who cares?
I do understand your concern about doing damage in that the EQ may mask something or change something in a way that would potentially mean that you miss out on it. However, if the mix is so objectionable in its original form that you don’t listen to the music at all, I would suggest that using the equalizer even if it causes you to miss some minute detail is worth it.
I ask myself, do I want to spend 9K on an awesome PMG in order to listen to horrible bricks? No doubt it depends on the genre of music one listens to, but for me, listenable CDs are few and far between.
I don’t know about 2 and 3, but 1 I think is really starting to become the norm. Dirac, ART, and self done with REW is everywhere. Go over to Chris’s Subwoofer thread and see what he is building into his subwoofers. Digital domain correction for NON- LP systems is great. Of course that may be my opinion, but I think its great. Oh yeah forgot one ORC from BACCH. BACCH itself is a digital what I will call filter, not correction… Many DACs now have filters that just have a highend rolloff option for just what you are talking about.
Below is a pic of my Foobar setup…. note the equalizer has an “enabled” button. I can tell no difference with it out compared to it not being installed into the configuration.
Yea, listening to some recordings without the top shelved down is pretty required… our darn equipment is so resolving that ya just gotta turn it down! Or shelve it down.
Note the Stellar DAC as output in the upper right corner. I feed this to a Woo Audio Fireflies tube headphone amp (DAC section turned off) to my Focal Clear headphones. A really great setup. The Stellar really opened up the sound field over the Woo DAC section.
I have an extremely fine but very expensive CD player. I can’t think of a single CD that offends me. I RIP them all and run software on the files that tells me what the peak level is for each song, as well as the dynamic range. Your comment that everything new is brickwalled is supported by the data I get. In the 80s dynamic range was always above 10 dB and each song had a different peak. In the 90’s dynamic range was still high but peaks above 0 dB became common. Since 2000 dynamic range is 5 dB to 7 dB on most recordings. Peaks tend to be all the same, -.01 dB. Sigh. But on my fancy player they still sound decent. If I am buying current music vinyl seems to have wider dynamic range and proper peaks. Recordings of vinyl back this up. This is ludicrous but unlikely to change any time soon. Huge sigh.
I am not sure that the offense I hear is related to dynamic range… sure high compression is not that pleasent… but at a minimum, compressed sound can’t be fixed with an equalizer. For that, you need an expander like the DBX unit I owned around 1980… I loved that thing BTW. Sold it not long ago for big bucks… someone out there really wanted one.
I think what I am hearing is music simply mastered/recorded too bright. Or, has bad digitit-itise (sp?) which can sound bright and hard. In both cases, shelving the thing down starting at around 3.5khz can make it way more palatable. Further, rock music when turned up, and bright is just painful. So if I want to listen to this music as appropriate volumes… it just requires shelving down the highs.
I am really glad Foobar has an equalizer that I can adjust, and easily click in and out as needed. (See my pic above.)
A quick note about Foobar… I am kinda surprised it is not more popular with audio nerds like us given its bit-for-bit transfer and incredible array of tools for dicking with digital files. The problem with Foobar is that it is fiddly to get the interface to look and handle like you want it to. That is part of its power but also its difficulty. If you are interested, I can provide you with my Foobar setup… you install Foobar on your Windows computer, then replace its configuration file with mine. Ping me if interested. Now some say other players sound better… not going to get into an argument with another audiophile, but the tool passes bit-for-bit so…. whatever. Ted Smith is a user FWIW.
What I question about Foobar is the equalizer provided a “good” one? I thought maybe someone here could provide some insight.
So let me jump in here and expand the topic just a tad but it will keep the same essence of this thread which I take as: if you are going to equalise, what is the best way to do it? There are two dominantly mentioned reasons for equalising: fixing room issues; and fixing bad recordings. But for old guys (I have just a couple of years on Paul) the primary thing that may need fixing is our ears. While you can mess with speaker placement, bass traps, and diffusers to fix room acoustics, and ignore bad CD’s (or get SACD versions when available which are generally much better mastered) there isn’t much else you can do for high end, age related hearing loss. I have messed with high end hearing aids with a very sympathetic audiologist for three years now and two things are true: even the best hearing aids are designed for speech enhancement; and those tiny little mics and speakers will never do justice to even an FR5. For moderate hearing loss, hearing aids augment rather than replace the sound so, yes, listening with aids properly tuned (that’s another story) for music is better than without but at what cost? For example, the designers could probably care less about phase shifting. I finally bit the carrot and now have a Macintosh equaliser in my setup, only because, well, there just isn’t much else out there in the analog world. Of course, ROON has a nice digital eq with all the control to match my progressively great loss at high frequencies (translate, shelf) but what do I do about CD/SACD and more importantly, my vinyl collection? For the latter, I refuse to convert to digital to eq only to convert back to analog. The few analog eq available seem designed to fix frequency bumps like those created by room issues. Generally, high frequency hearing loss just gets worse as the frequency goes higher. Any thoughts?
It used to be. Streaming & apps like Roon and others that join streaming and local files with Phone or tablet control really pulled most away from that. no need to have laptop handy or in the room. Roon on a NUC really is a rock solid platform (knock on wood). Heck even Qobuz connect or the hardware vendors writing their own like Innuos and new comer Eversolo. Their FREE apps are amazing.
I also found my ears were a much bigger issue than the room and was fitted for hearing aid earlier this year. Life changer but not for music. Long story short I decided to EQ to fill in some of what I’ve been missing using either the Eversolo DMP A8 digital or Schiit Lokius depending on the mood.
I’m not discerning enough to know if either or both are doing any damage but I know I’m getting more than I might be losing.
I am not alone! One relevant point I learned from my audiologist is how higher end hearing aids address the loss of higher frequencies essential for speech comprehension (especially of grandchildren). They transpose higher frequencies to lower. For music this results in messing with the harmonics, big time. My audiologist was able to create a custom music program for my Oticon aids that turns off this feature which does improve, especially with the sound stage.
I have a Schiit Lokius and it might well be the best economical answer but one in depth review gives it low marks for measured distortion. The top band on the Lokius is a shelf which is what I need. It’s much more costly brother the Loki max does not have a shelf correction at the high end. Paul is negative on analog EQ it appears primarily because they phase shift but units like the Lokius appear to be nothing more than multiple crossovers with controls which are present in speakers like the Aspens. That said, it would seem that the best approach would be to boost all frequencies uniformally with a high end component such as the PMG preamp and then drop the lower frequencies leaving the highs relatively attenuated.
You hit the core of the issue. It’s not are we degrading the signal with EQ, it is, is it better with EQ or without or with the only other option, hearing aids. As I know hearing aids are not the answer (you just can not get the soundstage with audio pumped directly into you ears as with earbuds or headphones) it is how do we make up for high frequency loss with the least harm done?
I have zero experience with digital equalizers, but I have tried many analog possibilities. (I agree that something either sounds better with EQ or doesn’t). What has worked for me is the Decware tubed EQ device, the ZROCK component. I have two of the previous ZROCK2 and one of the current, superior, ZROCK3 (superior mainly because it has adjustable gain output). Highly recommended. . . the wait can be long (I waited a year for my ZROCK3).
Just keying off mycrowave’s comment extended to your real world expansion of hearing deficiencies.
@bruce-in-philly I think we’re finding the answer to your questions 1 and 2 are the same. Like anything else it depends on implementation with the quality of that implementation buried in code and best judged by individual perception. A fairly superficial search didn’t land anything more than generic evaluations of DSP. I wouldn’t trust anything of real consequence to AI but a query asking what damage poorly implemented DSP could have on a digital audio signal returns all kinds of ways to degrade the signal.
@lonson At last look a few weeks ago, Decware’s build queue was working orders from May ‘22. I hopefully have quite a few laps left in me but am too old to wait that long for anything other than social security.
Well, there is a separate list for items like the ZROCK3, ZSTAGE, ZBIT etc. that has a lower waiting time in general, from six months to a year. . . barring supply chain issues. But it seems likely that there are supply chain issues.
For me this was worth the wait, I’ve found no EQ that suits my systems better.
“I will expand your music library to include much of the classic rock that was molested when it got remastered for CD. The ZROCK3 can remaster these recordings back to their former glory on the fly.”
Does this component really help the brickwalled CDs become listenable? Seems like those need a lot more than EQ
IMO yes, it really does help. That coupled with the fact that I can adjust gain from both my sources, the Decware ZBIT, the ZROCK3 and my Decware SEWE300B (in several ways) allows me to enjoy compressed recordings that I wouldn’t otherwise. (“Brickwalled” is a rather broad term these days; some extremely compressed recordings will sound improved but still have issues–I haven’t encountered too many of those to be honest–I’m mainly a jazz listener).
