Headphone EQ

[Farpun]

When I started reading into hifi I found that most people did not use EQ for their speakers, they preferred a direct sound.

Now I've been reading about headphones alot more I have found that people frequently use EQ for their headphones.

I'm wondering why people use EQ at all and why speaker users tend not to while headphone users tend to?

[was_a]

There are a lot of posts on Head-Fi about EQ settings, I know, but I doubt that most headphone audiophiles make it a habit to muck up the signal with processing - certainly not those with mid to high-end setups. 

 

Personally I think that if you need to apply EQ to headphones, it isn't well matched to the amp. 

 

(Of course, matching headphones to amps is an art in itself, just like satisfactorily setting up a room with speakers). 

 

 

[davewantsmoore]

It's easy to apply EQ and get a "bad" result.

 

A big difference(s) between a headphone and a speaker regarding EQ is:

 

In a headphone, all the reflections from "the room" arrive at once, and are typical the same in balance and level.    With a speaker, the sound is radiated in a complex 3D pattern, and the bounce back from the room can be quite delayed, and quite "unbalanced".  This makes EQ potentially more difficult to apply to a typical speaker.

 

Headphones can sometimes have a response with more large peaks/dips.   This can mean headphones "need" more EQ.

 

 

 

Over time... for many (and varied) complex reasons, people got a bad results applying EQ to speaker.    The mythology built up that EQ "is bad", and that a better ("purer") result will be had with none. 

[davewantsmoore]

18 minutes ago, was_a said:

I doubt that most headphone audiophiles make it a habit to muck up the signal with processing

This is a perfect example of the "mythology".

 

You are assuming someone will "muck up the sound" by altering it ....   You might very well be right for a certain situation (people are stupid, and often do muck things up) .... but EQ is also a powerful solution to many problems, and can improve the performance.

[was_a]

It's not mythology. It's fact. You apply a tone control, EQ, room correction - you're messing with the signal.

 

I don't have a problem with people doing that. But my guess is that the majority of people with mid to high-end set-ups - be they speakers or headphones - have spent a lot of money and time to obtain pure sound quality. That's the reason for higher quality sources, amplification and transducers. 

 

I believe that the majority would be reluctant to degrade the signal through EQ-ing.

[sir sanders zingmore]

4 minutes ago, was_a said:

It's not mythology. It's fact. You apply a tone control, EQ, room correction - you're messing with the signal.

 

I don't have a problem with people doing that. But my guess is that the majority of people with mid to high-end set-ups - be they speakers or headphones - have spent a lot of money and time to obtain pure sound quality. That's the reason for higher quality sources, amplification and transducers. 

 

I believe that the majority would be reluctant to degrade the signal through EQ-ing.

The convolution you can apply to Audeze headphones via Roon makes a very large improvement (IMHO)

[BATMAQN]

I've used EQ for as long as I can remember I love it.

 

I must have a rubbish setup. 

[was_a]

Well, maybe I'm wrong! Maybe it's commonplace with headphone listeners.

 

Speaking for myself then: I've sold a number of high-end headphones because I was unhappy with their uneven frequency response... Bass bloat for some, dark midrange for others...

 

Also, in the vast majority of instances my ears object to digital manipulation of an audio signal. A slight grain to the sound, or thinness, or time domain problems...etc.

[Farpun]

Just wanted to thank everyone for contributing, stereonet has a great community where people have different opinions but everyone remains respectful.
I feel I have a better idea of EQ now, was hard finding a similar conversation elsewhere, thanks all.

[davewantsmoore]

10 hours ago, was_a said:

It's not mythology. It's fact. You apply a tone control, EQ, room correction - you're messing with the signal.

Sure...   It is fact that you are changing the signal.

 

It isn't predetermine that you are making it worse.   Mythology says that "all EQ you apply will be bad".

 

You speaker (passive crossover) has huge filters in it.   Who says they can't be made better?  (etc. etc. etc.)

 

10 hours ago, was_a said:

obtain pure sound quality

 

Perfect example of the mythology....      No EQ gives me "pure sound quality".     Therefore EQ is detrimental.

 

Not all transducers are perfect (even expensive ones), speaker and listener positioning in rooms do terrible things to sound .... peoples preferences (eg. more bass, more treble, whatever) differ to designers.

 

EQ can improve these things, and often dramatically lift sound quality (both on objective and/or subjective measurement).

 

Of course, EQ is like "medicine".    It can easily and profoundly do very bad things if misused.

 

 

10 hours ago, was_a said:

That's the reason for higher quality sources, amplification and transducers. 

So why no "high quality EQ too"?     The fact is that EQ is able to fix problems which the above things "sources, amplification and transducers" cannot necessarily fix alone.

 

10 hours ago, was_a said:

I believe that the majority would be reluctant to degrade the signal through EQ-ing.

Yes - I agree.   Nobody wants to degrade performance.

[davewantsmoore]

9 hours ago, was_a said:

Also, in the vast majority of instances my ears object to digital manipulation of an audio signal. A slight grain to the sound, or thinness, or time domain problems...etc.

Sure.   This is not surprising.   "Bad EQ" is easy.     EQ is very powerful, you can make large and horrible sounding changes with the twist of a knob.

[was_a]

You make a good argument.

 

I have heard 'good' EQ in the form of Legend Audio's DEQX active speakers, which applies room correction to separate parts of the frequency band - bass, mids and treble. Personally I'd be enthusiastic about applying this to the bass bandwidth.

[Satanica]

1 hour ago, was_a said:

You make a good argument.

 

I have heard 'good' EQ in the form of Legend Audio's DEQX active speakers, which applies room correction to separate parts of the frequency band - bass, mids and treble. Personally I'd be enthusiastic about applying this to the bass bandwidth.

When applying room correction EQ with DEQX there's no such thing as bass, mid and treble. You simply put it where you want.

[bzr]

I think a valid remark would be that the room & the very placement of components in the room can effect the sound in relation to where we sit. If we were to detract that from the equation, as in headphones & not speakers, different rules apply immediately as does different recordings etc. etc.  For me I think I would achieve easier & faster results with headphones & an EQ than trying with speakers & said EQ, but, then again we all know speakers are for amateurs ....

 

[raband]

I see headphone and speaker EQ'ing as different in that with headphones there's no option for room correction, speaker placement etc.

 

No matter how "high end" your headphones are, the uniqueness of your own head, physical ears, haircut and even how you put the headphones on that day can all have an effect on what measures to your brain compared to any one else, and also to the manufactures design.

 

Add to that measurable differences between different units of the same model from the same run etc.

 

I find it quite easy to believe that correctly EQ'd cans can definitely improve the sound to the user.

 

That said, it's not something I often play with. Usually only temporarily when having a play, returning to stock when done.

 

 

 

[dalethorn]

If you listen to a headphone and it sounds obviously colored, especially compared to a headphone you have heard that sounds much better, there's a chance you could apply EQ and have a good result. Parametric equalizers are best since they allow you to set the exact frequency and restrict the width of the change, so your change doesn't spill over into adjacent frequencies. In my experience, I'd do two things -- boost any major recesses and reduce any major peaks, then listen for midrange colorations and try to address those. If there are several such problems, the chance of success is pretty low. Applying EQ in the music player before the signal hits the DAC is best, but any changes you make could overload the amplification, so you might need to decrease the player's output and increase the volume further down the line, to prevent distortion.

[Guest Benjet]

I've never been a fan of EQ's until I started playing with convolution filters in Roon. My current setup is a PDX dac running NOS with tube output stage, hybrid HP amp and Focal Utopia's. Up until recently I've been content with rolling tubes to achieve my desired sound signature and apart from losing some sanity, I've had some really excellent results. I starting looking into convolution filters and though I'll add yet another variable to the equation. From my experience I've found if you don't tweak the sound too much you can get great results. With my setup i'm chasing the 1% gains not the 10%. I think this is what most people fail to take into account. Any EQing should be there just to nudge the sound signature in one way or another. If you don't like the way your headphones sound, an EQ won't fix that, but if you want to enhance or subdue any slight variations, an EQ might help.Anyhow that what I've found..

[dalethorn]

1 hour ago, Benjet said:

I've never been a fan of EQ's until I started playing with convolution filters in Roon. My current setup is a PDX dac running NOS with tube output stage, hybrid HP amp and Focal Utopia's. Up until recently I've been content with rolling tubes to achieve my desired sound signature and apart from losing some sanity, I've had some really excellent results. I starting looking into convolution filters and though I'll add yet another variable to the equation. From my experience I've found if you don't tweak the sound too much you can get great results. With my setup i'm chasing the 1% gains not the 10%. I think this is what most people fail to take into account. Any EQing should be there just to nudge the sound signature in one way or another. If you don't like the way your headphones sound, an EQ won't fix that, but if you want to enhance or subdue any slight variations, an EQ might help.Anyhow that what I've found..

I'd agree with the minor changes to nudge a small midrange coloration to less colored, or to fix a small but irritating anomaly in the bass or treble that "just isn't quite right", but it's pretty close. That's the best situation, because bigger changes always affect adjacent frequencies, and even when you have a great parametric equalizer, getting the bandwidth perfect to prevent narrow glitches in the adjacent frequencies is beastly difficult.

[eltech]

This website has measurements of a lot of popular headphones.

Geez the frequency response looks awful on most of them.

https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/

 

So after looking at that you'll know why people use EQ.

 

From memory the only ones that come close to flat are the senheiser HD-500 and 600 

 

[eltech]

And even more surprising is how some really expensive well reviewed headphones frequency response look worse than some more affordable ones 

[Guest Benjet]

This website has measurements of a lot of popular headphones.
Geez the frequency response looks awful on most of them.
https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/
 
So after looking at that you'll know why people use EQ.
 
From memory the only ones that come close to flat are the senheiser HD-500 and 600 
 

Life would be pretty boring if all headphone’s had a flat frequency response.

[eltech]

7 minutes ago, Benjet said:

Life would be pretty boring if all headphone’s had a flat frequency response.

Theres no danger of that. Nobody can make a single driver reproduce all frequencies evenly. 

[dalethorn]

5 hours ago, eltech said:

This website has measurements of a lot of popular headphones.

Geez the frequency response looks awful on most of them.

https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/

 

So after looking at that you'll know why people use EQ.

 

From memory the only ones that come close to flat are the senheiser HD-500 and 600 

 

Here in the first 10 pages are where I post my EQ graphs. The actual settings are under hifi-misc. Note that the horizontal lines are 6 db apart above and below.

http://dalethorn.com/Photos.html

[Kaynin]

No EQ'ing on my head-fi set-up, but I use it in my hifi system!  I couldn't care less how I get the end result I'm after, so long as I get there.  No EQ in my headfi gear because it sounds better - EQ in my hifi because it sounds better... 

[Guest Benjet]

I’ve just ordered a MiniDSP EARS headphone testing rig. Should be interesting to see how good these are. At worst it should be a handy tool to quantify what changes I make to my system and if it works well it should give me the ability to squeeze some more goodness out of my rig. I’ll keep you informed how it goes. Once I get my head around the ins and outs of this device, I might offer to make some custom filters for other people’s gear. They would have to be in Brisbane and willing to bring over their rig over to my place and also make a donation to this site. Anyhow early days yet, I’ll put the call out once I’ve proved it’s worth.