Parametric EQ assistance

Hi all I am finding my speakers to be a bit bright and have done all the room conditioning and changing positioning I can. For a lot of music they sound just right but when there are some real high frequency sounds it can sound a little harsh. I am looking at going the room eq route but at the moment dont have the time or budget to get the umik1. So looking to see if I can adjust using parametric eq to take the edge off.

I have no experience with this so some guidance of where to start and what to look out for and listen for would be helpful.

Thanks
CG

This is what I use for this exact purpose. It seems to take the edge off without losing too much detail. I’m sure others will chime in with improvements over my simple approach.

What bands have you set, filter type andq are you using, I can’t see from that image.

Hmm had my hearing tested today as have been having Tinnitus for a while that’s not going. I have some loss in the 4k region and some around 30hz which seems to be the culprit. I do feel sensitive to other high frequencies so wonder if this is a result of this and my ears over compensating? Will have to play around with that Freq and see if it improves the fatigue I keep getting .

The picture shows five filters. The first filter, Band 1 being the large green dot, which is active in the screenshot, is a low shelf filter that isn’t doing anything (0 dB). The fifth filter, Band 5 with the purple dot, is a dip filter to -24 dB at 8kHz.

I’d suggest a gentler approach along the lines of the “house curve” example in this KB article.

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Hmm that seems to cover bass end rather than the upper end I take it the same approach applies?

I recently changed my office setup so that was a quick and dirty first cut to keep my ears from bleeding. You’re right, it does need some tweaking.

Part II of the article deals with full range house curves. Scroll down a bit.

Personally I don’t go in for house curves so I can’t assist with any practical experience. This is how my speakers/room measured before I applied some EQ (convolving a wav file) to straighten out the low end below 250 Hz.

This thread contains some house curves through PEQ shared between Roon users. Jussi linked the B&K house curve here.

Here’s what I use.

A little bit of bass boost, a bit of midrange scoop. I believe it’s midrange that makes music harsh, like a baby crying.

I’ve also reduced the master slider by 3dB to counteract the Bass Boost, this stops any clipping. You could also use headroom adjustment, either is fine.

Another thing that made my speakers (LS50W) sound smoother was using up-conversion with smooth, minimum phase in the sample rate conversion dsp.

Have a go and save it… you can then jump around and see what you prefer.

Cheers,

Dan.

I take it you took a measurement before adjusting anything though? Tried upsampling it tends to not sound much different on my system.

Nope… just tried it and preferred it. :slight_smile:

If it’s too much high end (cymbals etc)

you can use a high freguency roll off and see what you like (choose low pass and play a round a bit until you find something that makes you happy)

I believe most of the upsampling filters employ some sort of high freq. rolloff as do most room eq filters. You may want something less subtle then they are using

If its more in the mid (horns,vocals random screechiness lol):

a little dip at/around 2k will take some harshness out (similar to what Dan is doing above)

will depend on what ranges are bothering you.

and a little bump up between 80-100 will add some warmth.

My room is corerected but I still use a bit of a toned down house curve (with another little bump to fill a hole in my room)

Adds a little depth to the low end

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Thanks for the advice. I will attempt to play around when I get time.

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Tried similar settings to Dan as a first go and it’s helped a bit lowered the bass somewhat though as I don’t need so much adding. More play is needed, away now for a week so will have to wait.

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I just bit the bullet and ordered an UMIK-1 mic. So full room eq is on the cards now, If I can get my head around REW.

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That’s on my bucket list as well. I’m considering using Home Audio Fidelity to provide the filters.

It’ll be nice to play around first though.

That was my plan to.