From the popularity and influence of Audio Science Review to the fundamental research from Dr. Toole at the Canadian National Research Council to the Fletcher-Munson/Robinson-Dadson curves that form ISO 226 :2003 frequency response curves are a very, very big deal. EQ has fallen in and out of favour over the decades, but the science is homing in on the perceived neutrality of frequency response for the discerning audiophile. In addition to true “mechanically measured” neutral, there are individual hearing variances and personal preferences that change by individual over device, time and by age.
My experiments with Roon’s parametric EQ started with a 20Hz to 20kHz sine wave file over 50 seconds (logarithmic scale) imported into the local library played on a loop. The goal then was then to repeat the file or sections of it, over and over again, until the listener has adjusted the EQ to make the entire sweep as flat as possible. If you try this for yourself, you’ll find the annoyance of not knowing the exact frequency being played that your ears tell you require an adjustment. You are required to input an EQ ban filter, guess at its placement in the frequency spectrum and adjust until you hear what you are looking for.
The feature I request that would make this process much simpler and end user effective, bringing a high-quality personalized experience to Roon is a built-in DSP/EQ logarithmic sweep within the parametric EQ function that plays a 120 second logarithmic tone sweep on a loop, with a display of a vertical red line that shows the current frequency being played overlaid with the EQ band PEQ function.
This way a user with low skill and low knowledge of the measured EQ curve of their output device and personal hearing profile can easily tweak the EQ over a few minutes of repeated sweeps until the desired PERCEIVED flat response is obtained. At the moment, I have additional fiddling with PEQ settings because I can’t see exactly what frequency is being played at the moment my personal hearing/device combo detects an audible peak/trough that needs adjustment. It’s doable, but awkward and time consuming without the visual indicator of what is being played through Roon’s parametric EQ.
Imagine a 2 min EQ wizard that asked you to select +/- on various bands over and over again until everything sounds flat to you. It’s the ultimate personalization and would be an relatively easy feature to toss into Roon. You can build in your own sine sweep with visualizer band, or just build a visualizer that displays in real-time what a file being played contains, either way, awesome neutrality ensues.
Think about it, the Futurama Neutrals would be proud of what we could accomplish. It works for nearly all users, all devices (speakers/headphones) and all listeners in a very unique way with a modest investment in EQ visualization of a slow sine sweep.