Tom Adams Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 I'm curious...how many of you have equalized your HT system speakers? And if you have, what are you using for an equalizer? The tone control on my Denon (as with most receivers) just doesn't get it. Tom Adams Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rowooo Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Tom......Does your Denon have a bypass switch to bypass your tone controls? If it does, have you listened to it with everything bypassed? Most often than not this will give you your best sound. Only a few companies make equalizers anymore and very few, if any, hi-end companies have equalizers in there line. The reason for that is...(In My Opinion) equalizers can add only one thing to music, and that's distortion. The only situation I can think of that you would actually benefit from on equalizer is if you listen to your system at low volumes frequently. That way you could fine tune areas of the music to your tastes. Once you get to moderate listening levels you'll find all your doing is overemphasizing one frequency over another. The purest, most accurate signal is going to be achieved by the signal feeding only through the essential circuitry. All that said, I did have a high school buddy that used a Yamaha equalizer...they still make it...and loved it. He had Forte's and mid eighties Carver equipment and just loved the Yamaha. I told him what I thought about equalizers, but he was too busy watching all those dancing lights on his EQ. It did look pretty cool now that I think about it. Later Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilH Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Not only do EQ's color the sound but if they are set to overemphasize a certain frequency or two, they can drive a solid state amp into clipping, damaging both the amp and a speaker. Buy a lava lamp if you want to look at cool lights.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Tom, I sometimes use equalisation ( sometimes I do not like the enginers mix). I have a McIntosh pre with a superb parametric. Might be other companies with a good one, but I have not seen any. Derek Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwiener Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Tom, What do you find lacking, bass, treble? Are you trying to timbre match a center channel to your mains. Maybe timbre matching surrounds to mains? If we had a little more information we might be able to help with speaker placement to achieve the boost or cut of the offending frequencies. I would much rather move the speakers and come a little closer to perfect than to introduce a eq. What kind of speakers would help as well and which ones do not sound right. Lastly, do they always sound off or only during certain recordings? I have found that some recordings just sound bad, no matter what you do. Mike. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Adams Posted February 1, 2001 Author Share Posted February 1, 2001 Well, well, well...where to begin??? First, lemme say that I posted the question not necessarily out of a need to "fix" anything. Rather, out of curiosity as to the "collectives" thoughts/opinions. For those curious, my systems is composed of the following: Denon AVR3300 Klipsch Heresy (front mains) Klipsch KV3 (center) Klipsch RS-3 (surround) Klipsch KSW-15 (sub) I realize this hodge-podge of speakers is not an ideal matched system. But the wife get's her new couches and bedroom furniture first, so cut me some slack here. For the most part, I'm happy with the sound. There are certain program sources and music that sound overly bright and even harsh from time-to-time, but that I can generally cure with the Denon's tone control. OTOH, I'm not that keen about how the Denon's treble tone control affects the mid and upper mid frequencies. However, in a former life I've witnessed how a properly equalized system (using a premium equalizer) tamed a room's acoustics. I agree that it's possible to introduce distortion and that one can drive an amp into clipping by being overly generous with boost. But what does one do when revising speaker placement is either not an option or doesn't solve the problem nor is moving walls?? It seems plausible to me that a properly designed, high-quality parametric equalizer set-up to get a flatter room response, using a pink/white noise generator, should not appreciably degrade the sound or ruin the "performance". After all, recording engineers use certain amounts of equalization. Having said all that, I would also admit that my ears have disliked the sound of a system that was equalized to achieve a flat response. Anyhow, like I said, just probing for comments/opinions/theories/etc. How else am I ever to get smart?? Tom Adams ps: I too am a recovering dancing lights aholic. Fortunately, my lava lamp keeps the urges at bay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwiener Posted February 1, 2001 Share Posted February 1, 2001 Tom, A good place to start would be with pink noise and one of the PC programs that will show where your system is currently relative to flat. You can use the same program to make slight changes to the room to see if it makes things better or worse. I did the same with my system. I rearranged some furniture moved the rug a little and I now have plus or minus 7db from flat between 25hz and 17khz. I posted the URL to the software that I used some time back while I was working to integrate my Velodyne sub with my Cornwalls. You should be able to search this bbs and find it. The software has a 30 day free trial. A laptop with a microphone will work, but admittedly you are at the mercy of the frequency response of the laptop mic. Mike. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyrc Posted September 28, 2018 Share Posted September 28, 2018 On 1/31/2001 at 5:33 AM, PhilH said: Not only do EQ's color the sound but if they are set to overemphasize a certain frequency or two, they can drive a solid state amp into clipping, damaging both the amp and a speaker. Buy a lava lamp if you want to look at cool lights.... 2018 update : Recordings are more colored than ever, thanks to cutting bass and other monkeyshines due to "the loudness wars." From a post by Chris A: Here is a picture of an Equalization filter that I used for a few of the tracks in The Alan Parsons Project Pyramid album. Notice the somewhat complex treble down-steps and the wider/higher frequency bass boost than other Equalization curves. Here is the spectrum for the track that I started with: See Chris's posts for details. Audacity can do this part of the correction. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another A word, Audyssey, can largely compensate for room problems, using hundreds, or thousands (depending on the version) of EQ points and fuzzy logic use of 8 microphone positions. Audyssey is in most Marantz and Denon AVRs and Pre-pros. But, unless you "de-master" every recording, the unprocessed ones will probably need 3 to 9 dB of bass boost, as shown below. That's what it took to satisfy most listeners in the Harman and other research. With most Klipsch speakers, a 150 w.p.c., RMS amp will not clip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rebuy Posted September 28, 2018 Share Posted September 28, 2018 Why am I answering a 17 Year Old Post? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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