There may also be a companion program or something for the licensing bit. Maybe check your application folder…
After emailing 112dB a few times, turned out all I had to do was restart my computer for things to fall into place. When I get back to it, I’ll have a chance to set things up right and experiment.
Thanks to you guys.
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Forgive my ignorance on this subject Ian, but what would you recommend for my setup, I have a 2018 MacBook Pro using Tidal and Qobuz running through Audirvana. I saw your post from another thread
Where you mention the free options Mac has but I am assuming these are not the best to use, if I am using Audirvana do I still need something like “virtual sound card/AU host (something like SoundSource )?
Or would I just be able to Use an EQ plug-in such as equick? From DMG
Appreciate the help, as I am looking at trying/getting into EQ
Thank you
Jeremy
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Start with DMG’s EQuick.
It’ll let you focus on the EQ-part without worrying about the details.
It has a free trial.
My experience with free EQ tools has been less than satisfactory. Be that due to poor interfaces, stability issues, not being able to find out how the EQ processing is being done (e.g. whether they’re FIR or IIR), not having control over what I want to control, and/or qualitative issues.
If you’re going to run everything you listen to through EQ, it makes sense for it to be the best it can be as it’s going to touch everything you play.
Rather like the idea of buying the best monitor and keyboard you can for your computer, as those affect everything you do and usually last for more than one machine.
You can use it as a plug-in directly in Audirvana.
You only need the other piece(s) if you want it to work system-wide. That’s an issue for things like Spotify, that can only talk to the system audio output.
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Thank you Ian,
I will try the free trial of Equick. I will be looking at Andrew’s @Resolve recommendation he mentions in his videos as a trial for my headphones. I have never messed with EQ before so this will be an interesting experience.
I will generally try and not EQ headphones to see how they sound ‘tuned’ from the factory, but it will be interesting to try some recommendations for my Focal Elegia, Elex, Hifiman Ananda, and Audeze LCD 2C (Classic)
Thank you again Ian!
Jeremy
Yeah my main advice is to not go overboard. Try to do as little as possible, and only use wide Q values (so you’re not changing individual frequencies, but rather frequency ranges).
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…reproducing the ear piercing character of bad BA IEMs…
Thank you Andrew!
I am going to go back and rewatch your reviews on the headphones I have including the Focal Elegia and Hifiman Ananda. I will use your recommendations on those and see how I like it.
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Absolutely, as I don’t want to mess with things to much.
Hell, this has become my philosophy in life …
When asked what I do, my normal response is:
“Very little.”
“Slowly.”
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in my opinion the Ananda needs it the least of all of them - if at all.
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I agree as I quite like the sound of the Ananda’s as is, so I may not EQ these at all, as per your recommendation(to start off with) and what I believe, is using ‘minimal’ EQ if at all. I am going to follow the “keep it simple” analogy.
However I do like the idea of having the option to “fix” that little bit some headphones might need or benefit from and with the free trial of Equick from DMG I can see if I like it and if I keep it it’s a relatively low cost “solution”
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Hi Andrew, @Resolve
If you get a chance/have time, would you be able to post your EQ settings you use for your Focal Elegia, as I watched the part about the 2db bump between 100 and 200 Hz but I did not get specific values when your were mentioning the other areas you EQed.
Also I started a thread for people to post their experiences and setting used in their EQing adventures.
Thank you Andrew
You could add a bass shelf there around 100hz (or slightly higher) but only by a few dB. If you don’t want to add a shelf, just 2-3 dB around 120hz should do the trick. Base this on preference, because fit has a huge impact on bass performance anyway. For the rest, boost 4k by a few dB as well. If you don’t feel that’s enough, you can also reduce 300-700hz by like 2dB at most. Again, it’s just a starting point.
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I have been trying Equick and have been enjoying it thank you Ian.
I do have one more question, on Equick it has an option for “mode” to be either Digital or Linear. What is the difference between the two and which one is the preferred one? Sorry for the “newbie” questions as I have a lot of reading to do on the subject, as I need to educate myself on EQ. Thank you again for the help! Pictures below
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The “Digital” setting is a low latency (effectively zero) filter that has low CPU overhead, which is useful when doing things in a live environment, when the machine is heavily loaded or isn’t very powerful.
It will result in phase changes, however, which will be dependent on the EQ profile.
The “Linear” setting has higher latency (and requires more CPU power) but operates linear phase (no phase shifts). Latency doesn’t matter when just listening to music, of course.
The “best” one is the one you like the most.
I generally prefer linear phase filters when available.
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Thank you Ian!
I really appreciate the help!
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4 posts were merged into an existing topic: DSP, EQ and other Plug-Ins
The best system wide for the Mac that I have used is Sound Control from Staticz.com. Much better and reliable than Boom or EQ Mac. It has a 10 band and 31 band eq. It sits up on the menu bar. There’s a 14 day trial. https://staticz.com/soundcontrol/
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I’ve been super happy with Audio Hijack - Its a sup’d up version of SoundSource. From what I can tell though, SoundSource is probably good enough (even for me). But still, I’ve been using it for a year and it supports all the standard AU stuff.
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