Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions I will never listen without an EQ again

When I switch back and forth between an EQ'd and a non-EQ'd output, the difference is ridiculous. I have a major spike a 4khz and a minor spike at 2khz, I also have to bump 8khz and 16khz, because I don't hear those frequencies too well--8khz aint too bad, just slightly lower. There's also a minor bump at 250hz and 500hz so I drop those slightly. I swear, the difference is so massive it's not even funny. I am dying to get my hands on a nice 15 band equalizer right now so I can really fine tune the sound.

I seriously don't understand the neglect for equalizers these days. Let's face it, no one hears as good as they did back in the days--especially in the top end. And most rooms and speakers are gonna give peaks and valleys that shouldn't be there. I would put my money against anyone right now that if you EQ'd your setup to suit your hearing, you would be shocked.

It is strange, because the car audio industry made parametric eq's a feature of value years ago. My car stereo uses a 12 band P-EQ with an active 3 way crossover. In the HT realm, the integration of high, mids, and lows has become very similar to car audio. But here, P-EQs cost much more for the same computer chip they use in car audio. Just different companies so the tech does not trickle over - apparently.

The current thinking seems to be that eq is not effective above subwoofer frequencies and that room treatments are much more effective at managing/taming frequency anomalies.

Even with low frequencies the advice seems to be that equalization is a last resort.

I know what Dlo is saying. My plan is to do room treatments, but UNTIL then, the Pioneer EQ stuff has made a noticeably positive difference in my music and movie enjoyment.

I would, though, rather put the money towards the room treatments than a separate EQ.

So until I get the room treatments worked out, I'm leaving mine EQ'd by my receiver.

Again, the goal is to fix the problem (the room) and not band-aid the sound (EQ), but since I have a box of band-aids right now, that is what I am doing.

I don't even have band-aids.

I have Just Be-Gauze brand double-sided bandages.

Funny answer: each band of the equalizer increases the "fiddle factor" by a power of ten.

ie: Tone knob = 1... bass/treble knobs = 10... 3 band EQ = 100, etc... by the time you get to a 5 band graphic equalizer, you will have gone through three failed relationships before you're even close to ever being happy with the sound. No one comes over to watch movies at your house because you're always messing with it, and the number of eye-rolling injuries around you make your friends look like rejects from a Marty Feldman look-a-like contest.

The guy that used to help me wind my coils was bad for it... he couldn't go more than about 5 minutes without twiddling something on the receiver. Was really too bad, he was the first guy I knew with this new Dolby ProLogic thing.

Bren R.

Alll I can say is that the auto-EQ feature makes my room sound flat and boring. I have no desire to tweak manually because of the tweak factor mentioned above by Bren. I know that I would never be satisfied and would be fiddling forever.

Glad it worked for you though. Whatever sounds better to the end user is always the right answer.

You bring back a lot of memories when discussing separate Eq's. Prior to the rise of Home Theater, I had a couple of stereo EQ set-ups and they allowed quite a bit of tweaking but the problem with them was they generally added quite a bit of noise.

The only company I ever saw that came out with a Home Theater multi-channel (7.1) EQ separate was "Audio Control" and they wanted big bucks for it, let alone the horrendous increase in cabling that would be required. Also, it was really only useful if you had "separates".

I guess with all the built in EQ's in AVR's and Pre-Pro's nowadays, these units have pretty much disappeared from the scene. If you are still interested in acquiring an EQ for stereo listening you might want to look at the "BBE Sound" website since they have 15 and 30 band stereo EQ units primarily designed for recording and live performance set-ups that could probably be adapted for home use.

You need Stephen Hawking to figure the math out when you add parametric Equalization and crossovers with continuously variable slopes. It is amazing that crossing over the subs at 80 and a 12 db curve does sound noticeably different than a 6 or 18 db curve. I have found that this is the key to good integration, getting the slopes right so the mids flow into the sub, etc. But fiddle - crap - you can't stop. I actually use 6 presets and move them around per the music. It is an illness.