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A 'perfect' iTunes equalizer setting
Authored by: Elektron on Sep 08, '04 03:52:04PM

There's no such thing as "perfect". Each song will have (probably) been processed by an EQ. Some bands seem to increase the bass for the crap-speaker market, so it actually sounds bad on good speakers. And if your speakers are tinny, then you're probably using a laptop, and tiny speakers are impossible to get good sound out of (even eMac speakers leave a lot to be desired).

I have spent billions of hours tweaking my EQ, and have around 25 right now (for headphones, eMac speakers, and my two pairs through a 160-watt amp). I blast the room at night (the walls seem to be reasonably soundproof) to tweak my EQ. I use a few reference songs, which hopefully are mixed properly (i.e. made for "perfect" speakers).

Why it seems to sound better is you're pushing up the treble. Let's use my eMac speakers as a reference. It doesn't really have enough "deep bass" (Gravity of Love). It should dip more around 250-500 Hz (eMac resonance ish, Torn). 8K is too high, so esses sound loud (Torn). 16K is a little too low. It doesn't quite compensate enough for bad midtones. It drops the bass sweep, too (Atomic Dance Explosion), though only big speakers can reproduce it properly.

For the most part, you can compensate for bad speakers by turning everything down, and basically listening to one band at a time. 32 is really low bass. 64 is decent bass. 125 is cheap bass (the kind you get with "bass boost", the volume turned up, and crap speakers). 200 and 500 are midtones, 1K and 2K are "tinny", 4K is treble-ish, 8K is esses, and most of the high hat, and 16K is the rest of the high hat.

Then, you just turn down the bands which sound like your crappy laptop speakers (or crappy "multimedia" speakers).



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A 'perfect' iTunes equalizer setting
Authored by: drhmoss on Sep 08, '04 09:08:11PM

in college (abck in the late '70s) I bought a radio shack eq for about $100 (thats about $300 today). We played some good and bad music at a friends place that had some very good speakers. When we got to the album - 'Live Bootleg" by Aeorsmith, I was amazed. The album, for me, was junk. REAL JUNK.

But, with an equalizer we could find sounds and items in the background we had nedver heard before. On a live track we could hear the people walking on stage. It was fun to listen to - for a change.

Can a equalizer make an album good - NO. But add one to a decent/OK system and it can "compensate" for many defects in the system and room.

It is about he room more than the system. Set your equalizer for what you want to hear/can hear and not what someone thinks is right.



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