Parametric EQ for lower high tones/sharpness

[Tomboli]

Hi,

I have speakers that are already a bit bright; Focal Aria 926, I have quite a few albums where the high tones can sometimes sound a bit too sharp, especially with albums that are already a bit brighter.

I would like to do something about that. I have already done a lot with regard to speaker placement.

I listen to my music via Pure audio on my Marantz Cinema 50 (Bluesound is connected and I use a mini PC as Roon server) so there is little to do in the receiver for the high tones, toe in, toe out etc I have already done further and of course the acoustics.

I see that the parametric EQ can be a handy tool, but I can’t quite figure it out, I’ve read several articles on the forum about this, where it was indicated as a starting point to use the high shelf option.

However, after a lot of playing it still doesn’t sound very pleasant, is there anything to be gained from the screenshot that I can do better, there are 5 bands, can I do something with that or do you have tips, I want a more uhm warmer sound. thanks in advance.

[Arindal]

@Tomboli

I have quite a few albums where the high tones can sometimes sound a bit too sharp, especially with albums that are already a bit brighter.

Could you give an example of such an album?

I am not familiar with this particular Focal model, but similar ones did not show any signs of sharpness or brightness (broad radiation pattern in the brilliance band and overly fat bass - yes). They are relatively room-dependent, though, so be prepared for the explanation that you might be having a problem with reverberation time, reflections and the speaker´s directivity.

If you want to be on the safe side I recommend to listen to the speakers in a near-field environment and position them parallelly to the wall, i.e. no toe-in angle at all. If the problem mostly disappears, it is for sure the combination of speakers and room.

@Tomboli

Schermafbeelding 2025-03-30 111929|690x462

No EQ in the world can solve a problem like the aforementioned one, if you have such. A 5-band graphic or any broadband tone control, for example shelf filters, will not even help mildening it a bit.

If you try to achieve warmer or less annoying sound with a broad-band filter, you usually end up with making everything dull, lame while lacking dynamics and resolution. And not solving the problem in most of cases.

@Tomboli

I see that the eq parametric can be a handy tool, but I can’t quite figure it out,

To apply parametric filtering properly in case of ´annoying frequency bands´ requires a lot of experience with narrow-banded filters, ideally professional experience as a recording engineer or similar.

Most of problems having to do with sharpness, brightness, annoying treble or alike being not a result of room problems, require very narrow-banded dip filters (dubbed notch filter in extreme cases). We are talking about octave-broad problems or even 1/2 or 1/3 of an octave band affected.

My personal method of tracking them down is usually to listen to a particularly annoying track setting a very narrow-banded peak parametric filter such as a 3.5K, Q=10, +8dB as a starting point, playing around with the frequency in very small steps.

If you have nailed down the most annoying band, you reserve the filter to a slightly broader dip filter, e.g. Q=5, -2.5dB at the same frequency and play around with the level of attenuation. As mentioned, this methods requires listening experience.

[Jose_Vita (jvvita)]

It would be best for you to start with a measurement. You can do it pretty easily with a usb mic + rew. Also, if your maranta has room correction embedded (like audissey), you can do a full sweep and listen music with audissey enabled. If you like the results, you could mimic the correction filters in roon app.

[Tomboli]

Thanks for your extensive answer and the screens, the screens do help in this. You are right, I already noticed that if I would make it warmer it started to sound a bit dull, less lively. I will test further with this info. A song that sounds very bright for example is deafheaven - doberman, but its the production of this song, bright sound but alot of sharpness to me. Other example is Radiohead - Reckoner, I think its the cymbals? at the very start, way less bright and not annoying at all, as the first example, im primarily trying not to get listening fatique, which i kinda get with the first song.

[Arindal]

@Tomboli

A song that sounds very bright for example is deafheaven - doberman, but its the production of this song, bright sound but alot of sharpness to me.

The overall mix is surely not on the silky side, pretty dense mix with a lot of compression applied on tracks which contain already a good fraction of distortion (vocals, electric guitars) plus extensive use of crash and splash cymbals. Overall tonality does not appear bright to me, but because of the aforementioned mix not really clear what might contribute to fatigue and annoying treble. Might be the mix itself or just a tiny frequency band highlighting

@Tomboli

Other example is Radiohead - Reckoner, I think its the cymbals?

From tonality point, this recording sounds as expected. Cymbals and percussion are unusually hard-panned to the very flanks, on the ride a lot of very unusual reverb was applied which is seemingly changing during the song. Would take it as a hint that at least a part of your problem has to do with reflections in the brilliance band, somewhere 3-7K area.