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December 29, 2008 - 1:29pm
#1
Audibility of narrow EQ boosts and cuts
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If you play those clips backwards you'll hear, "Ethan is dead."
Just a bit more to clarify:
To illustrate clearly what is meant by bandwidth, the two screen shots below show an equalizer set to cut 165 Hz by 10 dB. The top image has a Q of 24 and the lower image has a Q of 2. In this case "Q" stands for a filter's Quality Factor, and a higher Q means the filter bandwidth is narrower.
Hey, Ethan!
I'm in the wilderness on a laptop.
The 10 dB cut is easily audible, the boost is hard to discern on Compaq speakers!
By the way, the 10 dB boost scores the same on the comuputer's 'equalizer' display, while the 10 dB cut shows up on the visual display.
If the cut is of the same frequency as the fundamental, you'd think we'd fill it in better, but I could hear the difference.
I won't be home for another week, but I'll try it with something other than built in 1" full ranges then!
LOL, only an audiophile would audition stuff on 1" laptop speakers and expect to hear a difference.
--Ethan
Of course this topic refers to the minimum bandwidth of an equalizer needed for equalization. Ideally the bandwidth would be infinitally small and the number of bands infinitally large. Never going to happen. So what is the practical values?
I have an equalizer that stays off almost all the time. I've never been ever to figure out how to set. I've used a SPL meter and test tone CD as a futile try. The only thing it is good for is when I play something on my reel-to-reel. What I need is someone to tell me how to set it up properly. I just end up with a bunch of noise that makes things worse. My HK is good enough. All it has is a treble and bass knob.
My only point was to dispel the common myths that 1) very narrow peaks and nulls are not audible enough to be damaging, and 2) that very narrow nulls are necessarily less audible than similarly narrow peaks.
--Ethan
For what purpose do you want to use the EQ? To make harsh recordings more tolerable? To counter a bass resonance in your listening room? And so forth. What exactly are you trying to accomplish?
--Ethan