22 replies to this topic

[twizard]

defintely a good idea to leave your EQ flat and adjust your gains from their

having aftermarket speakers does help your cause in some way though...

After you have properly set the gains you can adjust the bass and treble settings to suit your musical needs

[Damon]

What ever happened to listening to a system the way YOU want to listen to it? I personally don't care for what recording engineers do with their recordings because experience has shown me that they can be the most inconsistant and self indulgent people in the whole recording process.

I create my own personal sound systems to offer the ability to tweak and adjust every facet of the sound 'shaping' including bass and treble boost (all ways use a little narrow Q tickle at 40Hz) and subwoofer level (guess what? every damn album offers a different level of bass output depending on the mix!).

I also like to be able to crank the crap out of it now and then and do some boomin' so I need to be able to make adjustments for this too.

If you set your system up for SQ ala 'being judged in complete silence with the engine off' your system will sound flat and lifeless for regular driving as soon and things like engine noise, wind noise, traffic noise and all those other things come into play. Add in the FACT that every album is recorded by a different engineer who has a different spin on tonal balance and you see why I always create sound system to be flexible enough to cope with all these moving variables.

Then let the user decided to tuning from there.

Damon Dupriez

[dasherhalo]

Damon V World!!
j/k!!

I agree with both sides of this: leave flat / tweak the crap. Why?? (I'm not just fence sitting, Mum, honestly I'm not!!) Because there are two mitigating factors!

1, The equipment used, and
2, The person listening.

Every person is judges what sounds "good" differently, and it's nearly impossible to get two systems that are identical.

I've already had my ultimate system: Boston Pro's, Phoenix Gold amplification and equalisation. A 15-band EQ set roughly with an RTA, then, tweaked by ear. LP44 bass controller, the odd tweak of the treble setting, and all I had to do was sit back and enjoy. One of the simpler systems I've had, and I've never matched it yet.

Here's the statement: given that the quality of equipment is good, then only moderate post-setup equalisation should be necessary to listen to most musical genres.

If you've got $150 speakers up front, then they may not be up to the task of credible reproduction of music without EQ'ing the cr@p out of them: you've got to have the equipment to do it first.

Edit: oops - re-read Damon's last real paragraph: I think he's already said what I just said..... cr@p!!

[ May 14, 2003, 21:02: Message edited by: dasherhalo ]

[Cyberpunky]

Although my system has almost infinite adjustment, I only tweak the bass a little for regular listening Vs comps. Most engineers get it right, most of the time. Sure you find the odd dud recording but everything from motown to RnB, Rap, and even jazz, sound fine on my system, which IMO is what a system is about. If you have to constantly tweak for every disc, then Id be looking at whats wrong with your system design.

Anyway its all about getting sound you like, and so if you think it sounds better set a certain way, then thats all that matters, as your the only one that matters, but if you boost any freq then your system will clip earlier than if set flat. There are no free rides.

If you lower gains to compensate then your system will have lower output, than if set flat. Its that simple. When you do use an EQ to tweak a system you should only cut freqs not boost, as dips in response are obviously signal not there or less there, but peaks are offensive to the ear and easily detected and so should be cut out rather than boosting everything else and raising the noise floor.
peace
Cyberpunky

[ThumpenLTD]

When evver I set up a system I set treble and bass to +1. I think it sounds better to get just a little from the H/U without overdriving anything. Now I'll admit, I don't win SQ comps, but I think it sounds good.

At the end of the day it's up to the owner/listener and the set up.

My girl sets hers to Bass +7-10 and treble +8-10 and she say's it sounds great (I htink it sounds $hit house) but she likes it. BTW it is a factory stereo in a 2000 Laser..

[audible]

lol. nice one damon. met a few sound recording engineers in your time have we?

i find that albums that havent been recorded very well, i tend not to listen to in my car at all.
i used to get those various artists crappy things like hit machine volume 1,136 and have to turn the bass and treble down all the time.
after a while, i gave up. leave those discs at home because i found my musical tastes have swayed towards albums and bands that do good recordings, the kind of stuff you rarely see in the top forty chart.
those kind of bands rely on quantity and not quality and few of them ever do anything worth listening to in the first place.

i just know im gunna get flamed for that! what the hell. im on the dark side of 30. you youngsters will agree with me when you get to my age!

[Bassaholic]

Quote

Originally posted by audible:
the kind of stuff you rarely see in the top forty chart.
those kind of bands rely on quantity and not quality and few of them ever do anything worth listening to in the first place.

Amen to that

[Damon]

Any of guys ever seen Monty Python's 'Live at the Hollwood Bowl'?. There a skit in it where John Cleese plays the Pope and Michael Angelo (I think) comes in to be questyioned by him about his new painting of the 12 Apostiles. To cut a long story (and a very funny skit) short the Pope hammers Michael Angelo for painting a depiction of the holy gang with a whole bunch of errors in it.

How's this relevant?

While Michael Angelo is the artist and the expert it was the Pope who commisioned the painting in the first place. Aftering kicking Michael Angelo out on his ear John Cleese ends the skit with a very famous line which was:

"I may not know art - BUT I KNOW WHAT I LIKE!"

To me, music playback is much the same...

Damon