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Graphic Equalizer fact or fiction?

Willy6

Willy6

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
Years ago I was told by a friend of mine who ran the sound mixing equipment for a local band that Equalizer's are bad for your speakers he stated that (I shouldn't use an Equalizer with my home stereo equipment because I could send the wrong frequency to my speakers and mess them up)I always wondered if this was true fact or fiction?
 
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He is right in a way as it's is more to do with the actual user and what they like to hear and compensate for it. They also have control of the volume and if they like loud and bassy we could start having issues of blowing drivers.

Others will chime in as I got to get to work...
 
Agreed, fiction. EQs adjust frequencies with in the 20hz to 20khz band. Actually, the one I used only went 16 to 16.
Willy6 said:
Years ago I was told by a friend of mine who ran the sound mixing equipment for a local band that Equalizer's are bad for your speakers he stated that (I shouldn't use an Equalizer with my home stereo equipment because I could send the wrong frequency to my speakers and mess them up)I always wondered if this was true fact or fiction?
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Willy6 said:
Years ago I was told by a friend of mine who ran the sound mixing equipment for a local band that Equalizer's are bad for your speakers he stated that (I shouldn't use an Equalizer with my home stereo equipment because I could send the wrong frequency to my speakers and mess them up)I always wondered if this was true fact or fiction?
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Let me just say this before I leave, your friend was a "professional" sound engineer, now your asking online, and getting anonymous replies and some noob tells you poppy cock, really?

botrytis said:
Well, partially true. Not about the unwanted frequencies but one can overdrive your amps if you add too much bass and cause damage to the speakers.
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This^
 
Willy6 said:
Years ago I was told by a friend of mine who ran the sound mixing equipment for a local band that Equalizer's are bad for your speakers he stated that (I shouldn't use an Equalizer with my home stereo equipment because I could send the wrong frequency to my speakers and mess them up)I always wondered if this was true fact or fiction?
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Your friend was spouting complete BS. You might as well condemn tone controls on a preamp for the same reason.
 
I new this would open a can of worms but I have often thought about his advice so I had to throw it there.
 
Equalization is a great tool when used properly. The idea is to reduce or eliminate peaks in the response curve. NOT to FILL VALLEYS. valleys are usually caused by the acoustic properties of the listening space. You can have speakers that can produce from DC to light at 130 db, but if there is a window that flexes or a wall panel that sympathetically vibrates with certain frequency generating an inverse wave all the power in the world is only going to make the situation worse. Ideally if the filters used separately as with a parametric filter can duplicate the inverse of the peak then not only will the response be corrected but the emphasis on other forms of distortion will be decreased. Un fortunately filters can only correct rather broad issues. Some automated digital products today have 1/12 octave resolution, but can you trust the device to do the right thing in your listening space? Your speakers should be the best you can afford, with 10 db more dynamic capability necessary to satisfy your needs, with low distortion and of the desired band width. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Don't expect Magico performance from your EPI speakers by using an EQ or DD67000 performance from your L300 JBL . Its not going to happen. Now some speakers are designed to be used with EQ's. Mcintosh ML and some XR models have critically damped woofers, to guarantee low distortion and extended bass response from a small enclosure and there fore must be used with a equalizer to correct bass response below 150 hz. They are designed to handle the bass boost, to a point. Altec used to make a passive low pass filter that reduced the output above 80 hz or so as I remember. It worked great with my Carmel and Coronado , but you were still limited to 30 to 45 watts. Having some one with the knowledge and appropriate test equipment is almost essential to get the final sound to your liking. That said I've met a few musicians that can voice systems with in a few db by ear. The science of using narrower and narrower filters has really progressed over the last 15 years since I retired. But the fundamentals still apply. Get the best speakers, physically place them in the space relative to the listening position to get the best performance first. Then analyze the space and touch only the ruff spots. You can also choose to use traps and absorption to improve the space. Once all that done then if you want to use a separate program equalizer, graphic, to balance a recording to your liking, go for it. You'll will find your controls are much more effective and a little goes a long way. Mcintosh's band controls on C30, 32, 34, 48, 50, 52, etc etc are valuable. But they are not the answer for weaknesses in your total system. And remember equalizers can't fix dispersion or the ratio between direct sound and reflected sound you might desire in your listening space. I have found in some cases that by removing peaks in the response curve the sweet spot becomes larger and stereo imaging improves for more listeners in the space.
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Well, lets think about this for a minute. Most speakers have cross-over networks. Cross-over networks are not brick walls. So, if a tweeter crosses over at say 5,000 cycles, and we happen to boost the EQ up about 8 db at that particular frequency or slightly lower frequency, and the speaker has the typical 12db per octave slope (every octave, its 12 db less), the added signal strength may add more signal strength to the cross-over at lower frequencies, where added power may harm the tweeter (perhaps even approaching its resonance frequency, or even lower). The same can be said for the mid-range.

When we adjust equalizers to more then a few db, we upset the natural, overall flatness of the recording (at least on paper). The "out of balance" signal is (depending on level), going to put added stress on the drivers, due to the cross-over slope.

I also agree with twiii's comment, tho we are coming at from slightly different angles.

Think of how many JBL-L100s were damaged by EQs. The user had no idea that the mid and tweeter were simple, 6db per octave slopes. Also, the woofer had no coil or cap, just rolled off.

Not bashing JBLs, (I owned a pair myself).

That is why tone controls are at the extremes, like 50hz and 10,000 hz.
 
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I wonder if the OP recalls *exactly* what the guy said.

It seems odd for a guy who does sound for a band to warn against the use of EQs, given that EQs are used extensively by guys who do sound for bands. Those guys are usually in favor of EQs....
 
Fact.

After 30 years of EQ usage I had to have my Cerwin Vega AT-15s refoamed.
Still worth it though.
 
Frank Sol said:
If every EQ owner did more of what twiii said... EQs would not have the bad rep they do, generally speaking

Pull down more, push up less
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I'm not trying to argue with you or anyone else dude I'm just sharing something that was said over a few beers back in the 80s.
 
Nowhere did I see it stated that the OP's "friend" was a pro -or- a sound engineer,just that he was the guy who "ran the mixers" for a local band,he!! that could be anybody really,that could even be a person that's less knowledgable than some of the "anonymous noobs" posting here.

I've used EQ's in 99% of my systems,all sorts of gear @ all levels of power output and never once have I had a speaker failure that could be attributed to the use of said EQ.

The only speaker failure I've EVER had was almost certainly due to using a low power receiver with two pairs of speakers,one pair of which were low ohm/low sensitivity speakers,and in perfect hindsight that combination of factors obviously pushed that somewhat anemic low power receiever into clipping. And once I learned that lesson,I've never had any more speaker failures of any sort,and folks,that happened back in my teens (30+ years ago) which was back when I did'nt know any better than to do something like that.

And were we to include my friends who use EQ's,same deal there as none of them have had such happen either.

Used wisely an EQ is'nt gonna hurt squat,and should you want to really crank it up and push the limits of your system,all you gotta do is hit the tape monitor or EQ bypass/defeat button and that takes the EQ outta the chain,simple as that really.

That's also why "good" EQ's have some sorta level control,that is there so you can drop/raise the EQ's line level output to compensate for any boosted/cut Hz sliders via said level control and as such avoid "overdriving" any other components in the chain (ie: the amp and/or the speakers),yet the selected frequencies will still remain boost/cut vs. the other frequencies,just at the "adjusted" output level.

If this dreck were remotely true,,,I'm 100% sure that I would've blown literally dozens of receicers/amps/speakers by now...

JMO ~ YMMV

Bret P.
 
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In my HiFi selling days, I considered them a glorified set of tone controls. That was when EQ's were common and lots were sold if displayed as part of a system but not many sold on their own. If anyone asked what they did, I would explain their purpose was to compensate for deficiencies in room acoustics, signal sources and source material. I'm pretty sure though that customers bought them just to flesh out their systems and for the visuals especially if it had lights. I was disinclined to use tone controls or loudness buttons so never bothered with EQ's for myself until recently when I "retrograded" into 8 track tapes. As my tape accumulation grew, it became apparent that some had their high frequencies partially erased. Improper storage I guess. That prompted me to hunt down and find a particular silver face NEC 10 band graphic (the model number of which escapes me) and it's only connected to the 8 track side of things. It does exactly what I got it for and there's the nifty factor - it has lights. One red LED in each slide.
 
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