Equalization

[Guest Steven1963]

Honestly, I don't know what the artist/producer/engineer wanted the music to sound like. And since ALL sources are recorded differently AND the amps/preamps/processors we run them through have circuits which probably has an affect on the sound, I use my EQ to adjust the music to my tastes.  I'm not trying to flatten anything. I'm trying to achieve the curve that sounds most pleasant to ME. Of course I am changing the source to suit my desires. It also means I am accounting for equipment differences and room acoustics. It's all about personal preference and no single method is the correct method.  Someone who uses sound panels is doing the same thing just using a different process.

 

For example Led Zeppelin used recording techniques that I despise and I almost can't listen to them without some sort of adjustment. BUT they are legendary!  Worked for them, doesn't work for me.

Edited May 16, 2015 by Steven1963

[derrickdj1]

I'm trying to achieve the curve that sounds most pleasant to ME. Of course I am changing the source to suit my desires.

 

Steven I am the same way, I shoot for what sounds good to me and the type of music that I listen to.  I don't care much for discussions when people talk about speaker accuracy since most of us were not in the studio when a cut was made.

[Bubo]

Honestly, I don't know what the artist/producer/engineer wanted the music to sound like.

 

For example Led Zeppelin used recording techniques that I despise and I almost can't listen to them without some sort of adjustment. BUT they are legendary!  Worked for them, doesn't work for me.

 

Side note: I didn't like them when I could have seen them in the early 70s, and no matter how much I try I can't make myself like them now.

 

About every ten years I try to like them and fail.

 

The Mastering Engineers have to get the sign off from the performers for the final cuts on the music, so if the artist is deaf or has severe hearing loss you can frequently hear it on the LP, ridiculous high treble etc.

 

There is also Loudness Wars which adds 12db noise and kills fidelity

 

There is also quantization error which sounds increasingly metallic as the bit rates go down

 

Psycho Acoustics added to the re-mastering; and for the low bit rate market mastering adds tons of hiss and other noise to mask just how bad low bit rate sounds over a $1 dac and $2 ear buds. The target market for a lot of the music.

 

Bass Boost for the kids is one more way the re-masters butcher the music for low bit rate playback.

 

And in some cases, bands that sounded great to us when we first heard them years ago, actually suck when played on a reasonably accurate sound system and no amount of adjustments can make them play better on the recording. GIGO

 

Thoughtful remastering like the Louis Armstrong 20th Century Masters, can bring the music back to life and subtract out much of the noise hiss and clicks. I have been told that the other re-masters from this collection are equally thoughtful. Most re-masters releases actually sound noticeably worse than the originals as they add 12db of noise, kill the fidelity, bass boost and add hiss and sound effects to mask the limits of low bit rate.

 

Back to EQ

 

For me, yes sounds good is the goal.

 

To see how I am doing, I like to listen to female voice and acoustic instruments. Girl and a Piano usually works well. Both peak out the performance on the gear, piano strikes are very demanding on amps, any blurring will show up instantly on female vocal.

 

If it's a good recording, it should sound natural and clear as a Bell. Karen Carpenter sounds liquid on so many of her recordings and is the Gold Standard ( for me) when it comes to female vocals. Ronstadt is on the same level, but Carpenter noses her at the finish line. Noemi Wolfs, Nancy Sinatra (who I use to think was just Franks daughter) and some of Poe's tracks are excellent. Dianna Ross is stellar, but I don't think there are any Capella recordings or acoustic with just a piano at her peak. 

 

Wolfs early am radio promo for their LP roll out and concerts

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Bs09twUmg&index=6&list=PLgugWBANrQyU39SWyIM6sCIJWo-A3GBlD

 

Poe and piano, I've actually listened to her on showroom systems where her voice almost disappears completely.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEv6NotxuC4

Edited May 16, 2015 by Bubo

[Chris A]

The Mastering Engineers have to get the sign off from the performers for the final cuts on the music, so if the artist is deaf or has severe hearing loss you can frequently hear it on the LP, ridiculous high treble etc.

 

There is also Loudness Wars which adds 12db noise and kills fidelity

 

There is also quantization error which sounds increasingly metallic as the bit rates go down.

 

Psycho Acoustics added to the re-mastering; and for the low bit rate market mastering adds tons of hiss and other noise to mask just how bad low bit rate sounds over a $1 dac and $2 ear buds. The target market for a lot of the music. Bass Boost for the kids is one more way the re-masters butcher the music for low bit rate playback.

 

I recommend remastering tracks yourself for a while: a couple of months of greater than 20 hours/week is my recommendation.  That translates into about 30-60 albums, minimum.

 

I believe that about half of what you've said here will simply disappear or even reverse itself after you've spent a little time undoing what the mastering engineers have done in the past, typically never actually correcting the original EQ curves, but simply adding compression and limiting for "remasters". My remasters are actual remasters, starting with un-clipping the original stereo tracks and rebalancing the entire 20-20kHz band much flatter to be much less strident and much more natural sounding.

 

See https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/155096-the-missing-octaves-audacity-remastering-to-restore-tracks/ as a starter.  I learned a lot as time went on in that thread--up to the present (I was remastering Wish You Were Here this morning and took a short break on "Welcome to the Machine" to browse the forum.

 

For instance, here is the current EQ "unmastering" curve for the SACD version of Welcome to the Machine (PCM layer) that I arrived at:

 

 

Doing it for a while is a much different than repeating what others might have said about it.

 

YMMV.

 

Chris

Edited May 16, 2015 by Chris A

[Schu]

you don't think you are introducing distortion when you are taking a segment of 42Hz data @ -60dB and pump it up to +4dB?

[mustang guy]

In case you missed it, Chris said go to this link:

 

https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/155096-the-missing-octaves-audacity-remastering-to-restore-tracks/

[Bubo]

 

The Mastering Engineers have to get the sign off from the performers for the final cuts on the music, so if the artist is deaf or has severe hearing loss you can frequently hear it on the LP, ridiculous high treble etc.

 

There is also Loudness Wars which adds 12db noise and kills fidelity

 

There is also quantization error which sounds increasingly metallic as the bit rates go down.

 

Psycho Acoustics added to the re-mastering; and for the low bit rate market mastering adds tons of hiss and other noise to mask just how bad low bit rate sounds over a $1 dac and $2 ear buds. The target market for a lot of the music. Bass Boost for the kids is one more way the re-masters butcher the music for low bit rate playback.

 

I recommend remastering tracks yourself for a while: a couple of months of greater than 20 hours/week is my recommendation.  That translates into about 30-60 albums, minimum.

 

I believe that about half of what you've said here will simply disappear or even reverse itself after you've spent a little time undoing what the mastering engineers have done in the past, typically never actually correcting the original EQ curves, but simply adding compression and limiting for "remasters". My remasters are actual remasters, starting with un-clipping the original stereo tracks and rebalancing the entire 20-20kHz band much flatter to be much less strident and much more natural sounding.

 

See https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/155096-the-missing-octaves-audacity-remastering-to-restore-tracks/ as a starter.  I learned a lot as time went on in that thread--up to the present (I was remastering Wish You Were Here this morning and took a short break on "Welcome to the Machine" to browse the forum.

 

For instance, here is the current EQ "unmastering" curve for the SACD version of Welcome to the Machine (PCM layer) that I arrived at:

 

 

Doing it for a while is a much different than repeating what others might have said about it.

 

YMMV.

 

Chris

 

 

 

Nice write up on the link OFS.

 

At Axpona, the guy selling the rebuilt reel to reel Tascam's was playing copies of original masters, I assume unbutchered, at the high speed, the Stones never sounded that good on any other system that I've heard.....the butchered released products?

 

Mastering and remastering is the next frontier for me to explore.

 

For now, learning electronics and repair has been keeping my busy. I have stacks of gear that I am at the beginning of rebuilding. The Gear is demanding love at this point, so it's rebuild first........

 

On the gear side..... get it working to spec, then see what can be improved, frequently the tech has improved over the past 30 years so simply putting better tech and better rated parts yields results for a few dollars. Once repaired and improved, the OP amps are worth revisiting, op amps have a significant impact on the analog systems and may be the "sonic signature" since they are the first component the analog transits before hitting the amp section.

 

On the speakers, re-cap after 35 years seems mandatory, after that there is the question of replacing the diaphragms (phenolic for titanium or other metal), magic crossovers I'm not convinced so far. Not sold on modding the cabinets either.......... it would be less trouble to design and build some speakers from scratch like the Cornscalas, the sw from the project is readily available, but there is always the reality of "how do they sound" which PK was a master at optimizing for the components and cost aka declining marginal returns.

 

If everything is working properly, the biggest bang for the buck with the least time and effort is a decent EQ with programmable settings and pre- programmed settings.

Edited May 16, 2015 by Bubo

[Chris A]

Mr. Schumacher,

 

Please look at the green curve (the resulting actual EQ to the command control inputs), not the control points.  As you go below 100 Hz on these digital filters they get less and less sensitive to control point inputs since they are clearly using FFT filters of finite length and a number of audio stream samples (in this case, 8191 samples on a 44.1 kHz stream).  The downside is pre-ringing.  From the Audacity manual:

 

 

A shorter filter length may sometimes be preferable. It will take less time to process the effect, and the smoother curve produced may actually sound better, unless you are modifying very low frequencies.

 

Chris

Edited May 16, 2015 by Chris A

[SWL]

Honestly, I don't know what the artist/producer/engineer wanted the music to sound like. And since ALL sources are recorded differently AND the amps/preamps/processors we run them through have circuits which probably has an affect on the sound, I use my EQ to adjust the music to my tastes. I'm not trying to flatten anything. I'm trying to achieve the curve that sounds most pleasant to ME. Of course I am changing the source to suit my desires. It also means I am accounting for equipment differences and room acoustics. It's all about personal preference and no single method is the correct method.

Well put.

[mustang guy]

 

Honestly, I don't know what the artist/producer/engineer wanted the music to sound like. And since ALL sources are recorded differently AND the amps/preamps/processors we run them through have circuits which probably has an affect on the sound, I use my EQ to adjust the music to my tastes. I'm not trying to flatten anything. I'm trying to achieve the curve that sounds most pleasant to ME. Of course I am changing the source to suit my desires. It also means I am accounting for equipment differences and room acoustics. It's all about personal preference and no single method is the correct method.

Well put.

 

Agreed. If the track sounds good to you, why mess with it?  If you have had a chance to see Chris' thread on the missing octave, you might be surprised at how some music was intentionally manipulated to be full gain throughout the entire song which caused the lower frequencies to be severely reduced. It has NOTHING to do with art, and everything to do with being the loudest. What's more, LP's that were ripped to CD or other digital were done without the RIAA eq curve or similar a phono preamp would have. Again, bass notes severely reduced. 

[garyrc]

Honestly, I don't know what the artist/producer/engineer wanted the music to sound like.

 

As someone pointed out decades ago, what we regard as High Fidelity is high fidelity to the imagined original -- because we do not have access to the original, or to the way it sounded in the control room.

 

I find that Audyssey increases the subjective clarity and detail of the midrange and treble.  Like many Audyssey users, I notice a certain lack of bass, so I punch up the bass in the octave of 80 to 160 Hz, then turn up the subwoofer a bit to increase the SPL below 80.  All this is done to taste, after running Audyssey.  The mid-bass EQ is done with true tone controls, because using the virtual sliders on the Marantz pre-pro is incompatible with Audyssey (they cannot be engaged at the same time), and the so called "base copy" on the Marantz loses the fine detail of the over 100 EQ points provided by Audyssey.

 

I used to have a pair of 1/4 octave graphic equalizers, but got rid of them because they were far too noisy to use with speakers as efficient as Klipschorns, and, at best, they did not work nearly as well as Audyssey + tone control + sub adjustment.

Edited May 16, 2015 by garyrc

[chriswhotakesphotos]

And in some cases, bands that sounded great to us when we first heard them years ago, actually suck when played on a reasonably accurate sound system and no amount of adjustments can make them play better on the recording. GIGO

 

 

Funny story about that, as a matter of fact. The first time I listened to Bang Bang (by Jessie J, Nicki Minaj, & Ariana Grande) after upgrading to a more appropriate amp and preamp, I realized just how empty-sounding the song is. It's a bit of an extreme example, but it goes to show just how much they engineer recordings for what the target demographic will listen to them with (mostly Beats headphones and car stereos). A good 2ch system can be a double-edged sword like that! (On the other hand, I listen to much more jazz and instrumental than ever nowadays)

[Thaddeus Smith]

do you guys tweak EQ per album?

[mike stehr]

do you guys tweak EQ per album?

 

That may depend on the album. I've listened to some artist's albums where some tracks are recorded somewhere else than other tracks...where I can hear the differences.

[Bubo]

do you guys tweak EQ per album?

Mostly no, but sometimes yes.

 

Depends on the Artist, some CDs are so dead on that anything makes them sound less.

 

The EQ I am currently using has 10 presets, and 5 programmables.

 

I have cycled through the presets more than once with guests, and they always select the same setting which is interesting. I punches up the bass and the female voice just a bit, but very noticeable.

 

I do have to say that on some vinyl, if I toggle between the EQ and direct I end up on direct, perhaps a tribute to Dual, can't think if the name of my famous Danish cart and the McIntosh phono section from 1980?

Edited May 17, 2015 by Bubo

[Guest Steven1963]

do you guys tweak EQ per album?

 

When I listen with focus, yes. But I go beyond just for different albums, I'll also do this when I am changing volume levels to account for room acoustics. At lower volumes I might prefer a bit more in the 4khz area, for instance. Raise the volume and I might drop it 3-5db. Part of my passion for music is to constantly fiddle with it how I want it to sound. Even my given mood will cause me to tweak the equalizer or the sub. Mind you I have a wide range of volumes that I listen at: usually anywhere from 75db to 110db and my space is not acoustically controlled at all.

[mustang guy]

do you guys tweak EQ per album?

That would be where remastering would be better than an EQ or other processor like a DBX. No need to tweak after the fact. I still think Chris has the best solution if you have the time to learn it and moreover, the time to actually wade through your library a track at a time. 

[Bubo]

 

And in some cases, bands that sounded great to us when we first heard them years ago, actually suck when played on a reasonably accurate sound system and no amount of adjustments can make them play better on the recording. GIGO

 

 

Funny story about that, as a matter of fact. The first time I listened to Bang Bang (by Jessie J, Nicki Minaj, & Ariana Grande) after upgrading to a more appropriate amp and preamp, I realized just how empty-sounding the song is. It's a bit of an extreme example, but it goes to show just how much they engineer recordings for what the target demographic will listen to them with (mostly Beats headphones and car stereos). A good 2ch system can be a double-edged sword like that! (On the other hand, I listen to much more jazz and instrumental than ever nowadays)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2LAdyE8lEU

[derrickdj1]

Bang, Bang and Anaconda are good pop songs, lol.  If you don't like the songs, enjoy the album art,lol.

[djk]

"do you guys tweak EQ per album?"

 

I conceived it as a per-song idea about four decades ago, but bar-code was not in general use at that time.

 

Richard Burwen now has a bar-code EQ system.