Moogle Stiltzkin

Hi i am just messing with the EQ since people say it's good.

i am using this now and it sounds nice


I am using headphones ATH-A900 Audio Technica :x i want to know what is the best EQ settings ?

I listen to hiphop, rap, trance, final fantasy music, piano classicals and jazz :X

Err0r

There is no best. What is best to you might be horrible for me.

Moogle Stiltzkin

Fair enough.

But how do i create more profiles ?

I don't want to over ride my current eq settings all the time :X

I want a flat eq, and a custom eq that i create :x

So far the EQ settings someone suggested i posted above sounds nice to my ears.

Blackstar

Well the M6 has built in presets, jazz, bass booster etc. You can modify those presets with your own presets, that way your presets will be saved. If you wanted to add more presets, then I don't think thats possible.

The A900 is heavy on bass, and quite refined in treble, so you might want to leave those on 0 and boost the midrange slightly (give a slight hump around the 1K region). It doesnt improve the sound quality, but should do quite a bit in making your music more energetic and fun.

But its all subjective, if you've found an EQ setting that's enjoyable then stick to it.

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Moogle Stiltzkin

Could you give me the precise eq settings :X im a bit noobish

e.g. 01032034 etc


I put it to 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 cauz i think that is what you mean't ._.;

What should i modify spatializer to ?


My Ath-A900

http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/inde...;pid;1266;pt;1


I know what you mean but when your a noob and your not sure what is good or not i feel safer leaving people who know better to come up with a suggestion :] and that would be kewl with me since.

*my avy me dancing to the m6 beat !

Blackstar

and the people who "know" how to use an equaliser may not necessarily have the same ears as you and yes I know what an A900 is, I have one myself =P

I don't use EQ with higher end headphones like the A900, I don't think they need any adjustment to the sound. But its common for people to want a more enjoyable and fun sound they can dance to.

So an example of a midrange hump for the A900 would be:

0 0 0 +3 +8 +3 0 0 0 0

Notice how the vocals are now more lively, this is the effect of boosting the midrange. Midrange controls vocals and how much dominance they have over other aspects of your music. If you want more low end attack (more bass boom) then you would increase the frequency on the far left (60Hz). If you require more treble than adjust the settings on the far right (10-16K Hz).

Adjusting the equaliser is a matter of personal taste, how YOU like to hear your music, what YOU think is best. Not what I think or anyone else. So experiment around, and ask yourself what aspects of audio do you like most, is it bass? treble? vocals? or everything? adjust accordingly.

Now for extra fun factor you can turn on the spatialiser, theres only one function you need from the spatialiser though, and thats the Phase Correction for the equaliser.

So Spatialiser Settings:
On
Mode: Normal
Virtual3D : Doesnt matter since mode is set to normal
P.C.E: 1 (Any more and it will shift the phase too much causing music to sound too inaccurate)
ViBE: 0
Speaker Type: Headphones

Notice how your music now sounds more vibrant and warm (more energetic you can call it). If you turn off the spatialiser you'll notice that your music has gotton dull, this is because you've gotton used to the DSP. (DSP's degrade sound quality, but make the music in general more enjoyable)

You can play around with the P.C.E setting, you may like to boost it for a more lively sound, but I suggest a setting of 1 at most. (For those using IEMs and closed headphones, I suggest turning off Spatialiser completely, the sound may seem compressed and congested if you listen with spatialiser on for a lengthy period of time)

Now, Bass boost and treble Boost:

Bass Boost: 0-5 (depending on your taste, any more than 5 will distort your music)
Treble Boost: 0

Now Bass Boost and Treble boost are a feature of the philips sound chip. I believe its part of the "LifeViBes" DSP that is programmed into the philips sound chip. (Your Meizu M6 has a philips sound chip in it in case you didnt know). You'll notice that the effects of bass boost and treble boost are different to that you can achieve using the equaliser. This is because they affect a wider frequency.

For example, bass boost in my opinion affects the entire range from 54Hz to ~80Hz and when you increase bass boost it boosts that entire region. Now with the M6's equaliser, you can only boost certain frequencies, 60 Hz and the next step up would be 150Hz. Hence using the bass boost feature of the M6 is a good idea if you like that extra rumble and "boom" in your music. Based on my preliminary analysis of the bass boost feature, it tends to start distorting music above level 3, however only ultra high end headphones/IEMs may pick that up, so in the instance of the A900 you are safe to use it up to 5, but no more (Unless you don't care for distortion, or your ears cannot hear it)

I'm pretty sure you are already accustomed to the refined treble on the A900, theres no need to boost that so leave it on 0.

Okay, once you've gotton used to equalisation and perhaps even done some research you're ready to prove me that equalisation is a detriment to audio quality.

And.. you may be right :D

As you learn more about the audio world, you will come to appreciate certain aspects of audio such as neutrality, natural sound, balanced audio, and audio quality as a whole. Its at this stage you will be using a FLAT eq (0000000000), Spatialiser off and no bass boost or treble boost. When you listen to an instrument in real life, or someone in real life, you'll realise that their voices are not equalised at all, rather they sound FLAT. Sound quality is sound that imitates reality well.

Of course, as the M6 is a digital device that is perhaps pre-equalised even at a FLAT EQ setting, do realise that your headphone is also "pre-equalised" in a way too. As good as both get, you'll never get something that sounds like reality, but.. you can try to get close. At the flat EQ setting (Not with the M6, because the base M6 output is not flat by any means), you get the most details out of your digital device, when you adjust it, you'll notice that the sound changes as well. Try listening to a song with vocals, and boost the 60Hz frequency, does their voice change? OMG it does too! :eek: now the only way you can tell if this change is for the good or not is to actually listen to that person in real life sing and see if it sounds like them.

Ok so what have i been babbling on about in the previous 2 paragraphs? I'll sum it up lol, Equalisation can make your music sound better, but in many (almost every) cases it decreases the sound quality.

Sounds Good =! Higher Sound Quality (Not usually anyway, subjective there =P )

So if you must equalise, try an advanced equalisation technique. Cut all the frequencies instead of boosting them. Cutting means, putting the equaliser frequencies below 0.

for the sample midrange hump i gave you:

0 0 0 +3 +8 +3 0 0 0 0

is an example of an EQ boost.

Now if you define a new datum, say take -8db as your new "zero"

then an equivalent midrange hump will be:

-8 -8 -8 -5 0 -5 -8 -8 -8 -8

Try this setting and tell me what you hear. You'll most likely be saying.. wait.. the music is all dark now, its not as lively as before. True. But you'll also notice that the volume has decreased quite a bit, try increasing the volume. Sounds better? If you do a comparison between EQ boost and EQ cut, and you really focus on your music then you'll hear more detail with EQ cuts. (For example, the timbre of a guitar string vibrating). The reason for using cuts instead of boosts is to minimise phase distortion. Its sort of like what I told you about setting the bass boost feature too high, you'll end up with distorted beats, its a similar case with using equalisers. The safest is using a FLAT eq, the next best thing is to use EQ cuts. (You may be wondering why flat has less distortion than cutting the EQ, that would be hard to explain, and you really don't need to know the mechanics behind audio right now =P )

and this post has gotton far too long so I'll end it there. (You'd probably have figured, my next guide [when i have the time] is a complete guide to the M6's sound enhancement features).

__________________

mfb

Hmm, nice tip blackstar! I will try EQ-cuts on my M6 when I can find the time. BTW: Moogle has an SL I believe, so he's using a Wolfson DAC instead of a Philips (now know as NXP) one.

Nice to hear you like my EQ-setting Moogle. The best however is to always create one yourself. If you like mine, you might enjoy it even more after tweaking it a bit to your desire.

Moogle Stiltzkin

THX ALOT FOR THAT TUTORIAL !!!

I think i heard the A900 don't excel that well in mid range :d so i think thats what you mean't by raising the eq for that bit.


My review.


Ok my initial settings is 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 as people usually suggest



0 0 0 +3 +8 +3 0 0 0 0

This setting i listened after changing from the base settings of flat, i think sounds better to me. Not sure how to describe but sounds better :] So using that as my base i'm increasing from 0 for those and see which is the best to me :]

My testing song

Electro Fantasy, Beautiful Day :x sounds awesome now with your recommendation








-8 -8 -8 -5 0 -5 -8 -8 -8 -8

Hm not as nice as before. It sounds more quieter somehow ... like i've moved a few seats behind away from the main stage :d

Blackstar

Wolfson? wow, the sonic signature of wolfson chips is quite different to that of philips. I'd imagine that its not as warm, but colder and flatter (some iaudio devices use wolfson, and I love it lol). Say just out of curiosity moogle, does your SL have any background hissing?

And yes, you'll need to take some time to get used to EQ cuts, you wont immediately fall in love with it. If you go from a Boost to a cut it will always sound dark... just spend some more time on dark and you might or might not get used to it :D If its too dark then maybe the datum needs to be redefined, you could try other levels such as -4dB, -2dB etc. Professionally though, you don't really set datums but rather cut the required frequencies to gain desired effects. Eg.. if you require more treble then do a slight cut on the bass frequencies but leave everything else on 0.

Seems like you prefer an upfront lively sound, in which case you should have gone with Grado or Alessandro headphones rather than Audio Technica =P oh well maybe a future upgrade for you.

Moogle Stiltzkin

No i have not noticed any hissing at all.

My cans i used were a900 :x I haven't really used the earphones much.

Even though it doesn't have gapless playback i don't think it really bothers me at all as it hasn't impeded my listening enjoyment so far.

Well the thing was, the A900 was a choice made because it fit the bill of being a good gamers headphones because of the large sound stage, and still being awesome for music/movies, and does not require an amp, and easy to drive.

Overall it was a good purchase :]

I think the sound is nice, but yes my listening preferences is more livelier music and where i am closer to the performance :]

I like bass but i',m not really a bass head :]

shadowness

No, absolutely no hiss. And thanks for nice EQ settings. I'm very happy with my SL

I think with SL version P.C.E of 1 is too disturbing. P.C.E of 0 is ok for me

Axbrink

My sp has extremely much hissing, in music as well as watching videos...

any hints on how to get it to stop?

Thanks

Th3_uN1Qu3

I'd have some EQ-related questions too.

My settings are as follows:

EQ: User defined
Bass Boost: 6
Treble Boost: 2
Spatializer: On
Spatializer Mode: Normal
PCE: 1
ViBE: 0
Speaker type: Earphones

Sounds nice and warm but i'd like the voice a little louder.

Now this part got me really confused. Where am i supposed to put those numbers? Probably INI file editing of some sort, but i have no idea where.

Btw, the player's preset EQ modes alter the sound but don't change any of my settings - where the hell are they altering parameters??? Is there a multi-band EQ somewhere in the settings that i'm missing? Please explain those EQ settings to me.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Oh, i found it. :D I had to press the left or right button on the User Defined EQ to get to the custom EQ settings. Now i'm on to some serious audio tweaking!

mbarry

To turn off the hissing all you have to do is to turn off the Spatializer. If you notice, specifically, the PCE causes hissing on the SP models. I don't know about the SL or TP though.

mfb

Hissing will still be there, although maybe not that noticeable.

mbarry

A bit of a novel isn't it?:D

Speeder

If it's on only while music is playing, my bet is badly encoded sound for your songs and videos. I also have some music files I can hear hissing, but only a few ones that have gone through a lower quality encoding...

Sh4Dow

+6 +3 -3 +7 +4 +1 +2 +3 +4 +6 works quite well to me. though i have forgotten my other settings XD!

Moogle Stiltzkin

Blackstar - thx again for your wonderful settings :] works nice to my ears.

I want to report the new firmware bug sometimes has a track that will act funny, but will be ok if i switch to another track and back again.

Other than that the music is great :]

Blackstar

Your welcome. =)