REW-Good Looking Freq Response Graph Doesn't Tell The Whole Story - Random Thoughts/Findings & Lessions Learned

[Miska]

As a generic rule I'd advise to not do high boost EQ's, since those will increase distortion without usually helping much. Also gentler EQ adjustments based in 1/9th octave smoothing usually sounds better, very steep narrow EQs tend to cover very narrow listening position and make the sound just weird.

 

So using EQ to force flat frequency response usually sounds bad...

 

[Miska]

8 hours ago, cjf said:

@Miska

 

Hello can you provide an example of what you mean above when you mention using steep narrow eq at 1/9th octave in the context of an Audiolense user like myself? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

 

With REW or other tools it is good to perform 1/9th octave smoothing to the measured response before starting to generate correction filters for it, to avoid filters that have steep (high Q) changes in the correction response. Narrow dips and bumps in the measured response are usually applicable only to a very small area in listening space and overall trying to correct such will make sound weird and dull.

 

You can check the correction filter response for example in HQPlayer to see how smooth the correction filter response is. For linear-phase convolution filters, keeping the correction response smooth also keeps the amount of correction filter pre-ringing at minimum. Steeper the variations in the filter, longer the filter gets with more pre-ringing too.