Setting up an equalizer .....?
- Thread starter Willeecue
- Start date
peguinpower
Well-Known Member
There is that, and that can take a whole set up. Rock and pop concerts, small and large, generally have some harshness to them. Ive been to rock and punk band practice sessions, and those are little less harsh, more whole, but the SPLs can really get to you.
Point being, its different depending on what you are trying to reproduce.
I love the sound of a big pipe organ. Omigawd, someone have a spare Depends?
What I am saying is peoples’s hearing is not the same. Using a graph designed to equalize sound levels at various frequencies works of you can hear those frequencies as designed in the graph. Then, there are equipment responses at various volume levels, and personal taste. Some may like accentuated bass or highs. Nothing wrong with that at all.Yep, sounds about right!
No, of course people's hearing isn't flat across the audio spectrum - a quick glance at the famous Fletcher-Munson curves will demonstrate that. However, that's irrelevant. We live with non-flat hearing 24/7 and hear everything that way. If a sound system was equalised to undo the Fletcher-Munson curves it would sound completely different to everything else we hear, including live music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour
My opinion is that adjustments such as FMC are ideal for recordings, but as an individual, it may lack what I like. So, i believe that Fletcher-Munson is irrelevant in a personal listening area.
peguinpower
Well-Known Member
debunking opinions based on credentials is BS. the greatest technical genius of this century who was able to land a rocket on a platform in the middle of the ocean is an economics and physics grad. He used vision, execution and will power.
Nelson Pass is a physic graduate. Most of the pioneers in audio had no credentials, James B Lansing was car salesman.
Floyd Toole, as great as he was, built his career on the back of work pioneered and developed by humble men.
peguinpower
Well-Known Member
So you missed the point entirely. The engineers wouldve never achieved such a feat if it were not for Elon Musk. He said he would do it, and he did. I dont see an engineer doing anything of the sort, have you?
It was his concept, and he made it happen.
peguinpower
Well-Known Member
and you apparently have no experience in how things get done lol
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JoeESP9
ESL's & tubes since 83
"the Wanamaker Organ has 28,750 pipes in 464 ranks"
As long as you stay away from those Brown notes you should be OK.
I listen to just about everything. I helped pay my way through college by doing union gigs (bass player). Yes, I was a member of the AF of M. I still have several axe's and a couple of amplifiers.
As I posted earlier, the better my system has become in reproducing the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Wannamaker Organ the better everything else sounds.
Right now I'm listening to Black Pumas. I saw on the CBS News this morning they're up for a major Grammy. Perhaps later I'll check out the Lady Gaga that was delivered yesterday. I'm waiting on a delivery of Orchestra Baobab, Specialist In All Styles.
No matter how you listen to it, it's better than nothing. As posted earlier a lot depends on ones personal reference.
Almost no modern stereos have time controls, much less loudness. Tone controls, loudness, and EQs are relics from a passed era where speakers typically had significant failings. Flat response is the widely agreed upon ideal.
peguinpower
Well-Known Member
I have not owned a receiver in a while. I am surprised this is the case. I did enjoy a little loudness bump at low listening levels.
The thing about the F-M diagram is that it's a family of curves. The fact that the curves aren't flat isn't important. What's important is that the bass end of the curves changes in relation to the rest of the curves as the SPL changes.
What does our hearing need to be compensated for? We use our hearing all the time in our everyday lives and manage perfectly well without any compensation. Why would we need compensation when listening to loudspeakers?
Perhaps you could explain.
I am wise enough to have consulted several sources on the matter and come to understand what F-M curves are all about. Initially, I was misguided and thought that because the LF end of the curves bends upwards, that indicates an insensitivity to bass which needs to be corrected. It's a misinterpretation that many people have made, but further reading showed me the error in my thinking and now I understand the meaning of the F-M curves and how they give rise to the loudness function found on some amplifiers.
Anyway, let's pretend for a moment that I haven't read anything on the subject, and let's assume you are someone "who has studied sound engineering and the effects of spl at volume and at varying frequency on the human auditory system". Ok, I'm consulting you. Please give me a full interpretation of the F-M curves and explain how an amp's loudness function works in respect of those curves. Feel free to include as much detail and references as you like. I am open-minded and willing to learn.
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We need some tone compensation in the tone of some of these responses. Please cool it down.
If you can add some meaningful comment and explanatory information to help other members, please do so. Otherwise, unnecessarily argumentative or snarky comments don't belong here, neither does dancing around the subject matter. Add value, pleasantly, or please move on to another thread.
If you can add some meaningful comment and explanatory information to help other members, please do so. Otherwise, unnecessarily argumentative or snarky comments don't belong here, neither does dancing around the subject matter. Add value, pleasantly, or please move on to another thread.
That's really not true at all. Most speaker from the 60's and 70's we're far from flat giving rise to terms like "British", "West Coast", and "New England" sound. Klipsch didn't adhere to any of those sound profiles which is why they're still making the same speakers today, and probably will for another 60 years. If so many of those companies from the 70's built flat speakers, they'd still be around like Klipsch.
As for the electronics, solid state amps didn't really get their issues sorted out until the 80's, and that's up for debate. The speakers typically used at the time went a good way to cover up the problems of 70's electronics. The resolving power of my old Marantz units can't come close to my Adcom/Pass combo, especially when heard through my Focals. They drive my AMT1's just fine in my bedroom though, and I enjoy them for what they are, but I'm not diluted into thinking the Marantz/ESS combos are objectively better than my Adcom/Pass/Focal system. The Marantz/ESS combo does justify tone controls, ideally an EQ, because to get the upper midrange to show up on the ESS takes turning up the treble, which makes them too bright, and bass is pretty weak with them too. None of my Marantz units like driving my Focals at all. Even driving the amps with one of the Marantz pre sections reveals how veiled that section alone is.
Thud3
Active Member
Hey Willie- if you’re still out there, here’s what works for me. I find a recording with a lot of instruments for a broad range of frequencies. I set the balance to one channel at a time, moving each slider up and down, listening to remove muddiness/boominess and general distortion from the lower frequencies, and the tinniness/honkiness/ distortion from the mids and highs. Then move the whole curve down or up to avoid using the eq as an amp.
In general, I try to equalize the system, not the recording. Cleaning up the distortion, and smoothing out the relative loudness of the frequencies.
Play “Desolation Row” loud when done. If the harmonica doesn’t make you reach to turn the volume down, you got it right
In general, I try to equalize the system, not the recording. Cleaning up the distortion, and smoothing out the relative loudness of the frequencies.
Play “Desolation Row” loud when done. If the harmonica doesn’t make you reach to turn the volume down, you got it right