To Equalize or Not to Equalize

[Te-Te]

Well thank you damacman, that was a very nice compliment ..
During the mid seventies whilst living & working in Miami FL. my boss/`s would pull me off the repair bench for "CB"(yech!) and stereo installs..
Wasn`t much HQ car audio gear available at that time, so only straight forward and basic installs, but a lot of them. especially around that time everybody and their mother wanted "how `bout you good buddy" CB installs to the tune of a peak of ~20 a day in 1976..

But I learned a lot about reliable low noise mobile connection/interface of equipment to cars and a good amount of RF experience, at least in my budding repair career..

Bill, I find your posts fascinating, please be careful during Hurricane Irma and IF you can, keep us posted on what is happening from Your perspective.

 

[Bill Ferris]

Bill, I find your posts fascinating, please be careful during Hurricane Irma and IF you can, keep us posted on what is happening from Your perspective.

Again Te-Te, thank you for the posting compliment and your concern about my well being, as that is very kind of you..
I`m pretty good about being well prepared concerning the hurricane/s situation, as I`ve been beefing up my house since 1992..
And really only become concerned with Cat 4 + intensity and very high water flooding from the St. John`s river a ~1000 ft. to my East..
The Irma hurricane situation seems to be in my favor, from monitoring Noah`s information with checking the updates concerning it`s landfall and intensity..
But we`ll see how the situation continues to develop.
And as soon as my Personal assistant/house keeper shows up we will have my (circa1992) custom made rapid deployment hurricane panels installed in a couple of hours.. And 400 gallons of LP to feed my (circa 1999) 25 kw whole house automatic standby gen set.. Been there, done that..

Again thank you Sir. I will keep you and any others whom may be interested in what`s happening here as long as my internet stays up..

Very kind regards, Over Kill Bill (OKB)

 

[GSS61]

Again Te-Te, thank you for the posting compliment and your concern about my well being, as that is very kind of you..
I`m pretty good about being well prepared concerning the hurricane/s situation, as I`ve been beefing up my house since 1992..
And really only become concerned with Cat 4 + intensity and very high water flooding from the St. John`s river a ~1000 ft. to my East..
The Irma hurricane situation seems to be in my favor, from monitoring Noah`s information with checking the updates concerning it`s landfall and intensity..
But we`ll see how the situation continues to develop.
And as soon as my Personal assistant/house keeper shows up we will have my (circa1992) custom made rapid deployment hurricane panels installed in a couple of hours.. And 400 gallons of LP to feed my (circa 1999) 25 kw whole house automatic standby gen set.. Been there, done that..

Again thank you Sir. I will keep you and any others whom may be interested in what`s happening here as long as my internet stays up..

Very kind regards, Over Kill Bill (OKB)

It looks like Irma keeps tracking a little more west which will likely increase the impact it has on the Tallahassee area where I'm at

I'm out in the country and used to power outages... but not quite as set up as Bill. I do have a 5 kW generator and plenty of fuel in case we are out of power for awhile.

It's not large enough to run my A/C, but it can handle everything else including my well pump so we will have running water, refrigerator, lights, TV, etc.

My kitchen stove and hot water heater are propane so they will work as well. We are hunkering down...

 

[Bill Ferris]

It looks like Irma keeps tracking a little more west which will likely increase the impact it has on the Tallahassee area where I'm at

I'm out in the country and used to power outages... but not quite as set up as Bill. I do have a 5 kW generator and plenty of fuel in case we are out of power for awhile.

It's not large enough to run my A/C, but it can handle everything else including my well pump so we will have running water, refrigerator, lights, TV, etc.

My kitchen stove and hot water heater are propane so they will work as well. We are hunkering down...

Hang in there "Brother in Arms" !!
Just finished "battening down all the hatches" here..

Getting close to my 5:00 `O clock tropical "Girly Boat drink" that my house keeper will make from my "Bartender`s Black book" !!
I`m sure she`ll select one that is a hurricane related theme one, as she likes too do.

She won`t be in tomorrow, so I`m all alone in the "End Zone" until she can make it back over here.. But that`s cool..

Hope to see you on the other side..

Thanks, and kind regards, OKB

 

[GSS61]

Hang in there "Brother in Arms" !!
Just finished "battening down all the hatches" here..

Getting close to my 5:00 `O clock tropical "Girly Boat drink" that my house keeper will make from my "Bartender`s Black book" !!
I`m sure she`ll select one that is a hurricane related theme one, as she likes too do.

She won`t be in tomorrow, so I`m all alone in the "End Zone" until she can make it back over here.. But that`s cool..

Hope to see you on the other side..

Thanks, and kind regards, OKB

No doubt FL old timers like us can handle this storm... mother nature does keep one humble, however - LOL

 

[Bill Ferris]

No doubt FL old timers like us can handle this storm... mother nature does keep one humble, however - LOL

Yes Sir.--You know it..
I might shake my fist, and have, in cocky defiance at a bad ass on top of me lightening storm,s because of my extensive/massive 20 + grounding rod system with meter, load panel & HP/Q end point protection devices !!

But, powerful hurricanes, or tornado`s bearing down on me will humble me real quick, with no over confidence or arrogance from me at all !!!

I`m strange in that way !!
And don`t usually gamble in any other form or fashion !!

Outer bands of Irma seem to be happening here with the periodic rain squalls..

Mercy Sakes Alive on all this !!
BTW. my "special girly Boat drink" was called a "Everglades Special" FWIW.

 

[Roboturner91]

I have one, a Yamaha EQ-550, that I only bought because it was cheap ($10, who could pass that up) but it's also super nice. Has a pink noise generator, subsonic filter, spectrum analyzer, variable meter settings, blah blah blah. Cool looking piece. I find it colors the sound even with all frequencies at neutral, so I don't typically use it, but it does come in handy for late-night listening because my receiver does not have a loudness function.

 

[Hufsredo]

I have a question about getting speakers near flat in a room.

If measurements show, for example, a 6db peak at 800 HZ, should I reduce that frequency 6 db on the EQ and all is good? Or are the 6 db on the EQ not equal to 6 db in room?

I used a spectrum anillizer and a pink noise generator, check the system at 60db, 90db and 100db if need be. You may be surprised what it takes to get a flat response from 20hz to 20khz. (Tone controls set to flat.)

 

[Bill Ferris]

I used a spectrum anillizer and a pink noise generator, check the system at 60db, 90db and 100db if need be. You may be surprised what it takes to get a flat response from 20hz to 20khz. (Tone controls set to flat.)

Usually the system will sound overly bright afterwards..

At least that`s been my experience with hundred`s of voicing systems..
I did my bedroom system well over ten years ago and ending up redoing it this time allowing for the natural roll off after taming the peaks..

With 2 Velodyne ULD 15`s with their 400 watt servo amps it was easy to bring up the bottom end without the boomy colorization from excitation of the room nodes..
With the Mac XRT 18`s used in the bedroom it sounded way more natural on all types of music IMHO by going that route at all SPL levels and sometimes when the mood and music strikes me when played at quite realistic levels that 2 Mac MC 1201`s can effortlessly provide..
Being a "solo act" I can do that without any concerns of bothering any non existing "SWMBO" !!

Voice your system any way that sounds best for you, after all it is your ears and system..

Enjoy the music..

Kind regards, OKB

 

[Frank Sol]

Voice your system any way that sounds best for you, after all it is your ears and system..

Enjoy the music..

 

[patate91]

Usually the system will sound overly bright afterwards..

I think that's because it pretty hard to get accurate measurements above 1k Hz. High frequencies change within an inch. So unless you never move you'll end with different results each day.

 

[Bill Ferris]

Thanks Frank.. OKB

 

[Bill Ferris]

I think that's because it pretty hard to get accurate measurements above 1k Hz. High frequencies change within an inche. So unless you never move you'll end with different results each day.

Well patae91, I don`t recall having any difficulties voicing above 1k when the system was already setup and configured for the best sound before hand(remember proper voicing is the icing on a already well baked cake !!), unless there were high ambient background noises, which should be reduced as much as possible for best results, or the SPL of pink noise will have to be increased until there is at least a 10 db. difference from my experience..
The low frequencies always take a lot longer to accurately adjust the lowest octaves because of the long time constants needed of the analyzer to average pink noise, especially more so when trying to voice to +/- 2 db. which can sometimes be achieved in a very HQ system and room..
But one can spend a lot of time attempting to do so..
I know from spending most of all day manually voicing my living rooms 7.1(no subwoofer though) A/V system back in the winter of 2003 after setting up my, new at that time, tri-amp configured Mac XRT 30 speaker system with it`s matching center channel speaker.

Every channel had a 1/3 octave equalizer, so that`s a lot of sliders, numbing pink noise and time.
Even with Sonic II ear protectors it was still fatiguing @ 90 db. SPL !!
I wouldn`t even try to listen to the system until the next day after I recovered("patience Grasshopper" !!)..

Anyway that`s been my experience. YMMV.

Now my super duper HQ DSP Loudspeaker management crossover`s internal program, when run, sets phase & time aligns the front L/R Lows, Mid, & Highs speakers in 15 minutes or so.. Then on to my Integra A/V preamp`s voicing program that sets all the timing between all the channels and Eq`s in what I believe to be a very low fractional octave voicing in less then 15 min. or so with zero concern for keeping all those friggin sliders from creating noise..

 

[NH-MAN]

Then you record two different guitars being played. When you play them back on your stereo, should guitar "a" sound like recording "b"?

Of course not but I wasn't in the room listening to both so I dont know what they sound like anyway.

 

[duenas55]

I couldn't do without an equalizer.

so tell me what is the best equalizer to us on a Yamaha R-500?

 

[JoeESP9]

Does it have a Tape Monitor loop? If so any equalizer will work. If not you may have a problem. Show a picture of the back panel.

 

[CapZark]

I took all of this stuff out of my system figuring less wires, caps, and resistors in the signal path equals better sound. So far, I haven't missed any of it at all.

 

[JoeESP9]

I was trying to help the OP, not make a value judgement.
FWIW: I use a DSP to equalize my system. I'm not a fan of octave equalizers. All to often they end up with a smiley face on the front panel. That has absolutely nothing to do with equalizing for flatter in room response.

 

[Bodyblue]

I took all of this stuff out of my system figuring less wires, caps, and resistors in the signal path equals better sound. So far, I haven't missed any of it at all.

It equals different sound for sure.

 

[drumbum]

I'm curious as to the percentage of people with and EQ have actually measured and corrected for room/speaker combo?

I don't really think it's possible w/out a condenser mic and some type of analyzer.

I think I may have found a use for those cheezy phone app spl meters, cuz my spl meter is only A weighted.