Hi all! Well I got my new DAC and have spent the last two days getting my head around the many and varied settings! I think I have everything sorted but I was wondering about eq settings for my Sennheiser HD600 headphones? I’ve been using the convolution filters linked to somewhere on here (can’t find the original post now!) within Roon with my Mojo to good effect - but these seem to place a veil over the proceedings when compared to the RME DAC raw so to speak.
As this amazing bit of tech comes with a 5 band DSP eq built-in I was wondering if anyone had tinkered with these settings at all? Or if anyone has a basic HD600 eq set of parameters I can input manually to try them out?
Also - RME produce pro kit and poo poo any suggestions of changes to sound signature as a result of USB cables etc. but I wonder if anyone here might have found otherwise? I’m just using the stock cable that came with the unit.
PS. In my main system I also noticed the speaker settings distance and balance eq I had set-up in Roon for the Mojo seemed to muffle things up a bit? So I’m using the balance control in the RME unit and just a little speaker distance delay in Roon DSP - which seems to be the best of both worlds actually. I think it’s my room shape causing the left hand speaker to appear recessed, it fires into the open plan kitchen area whereas the right hand speaker fires at the wall four foot behind me. So I played with Roon DSP to arrive at a specific difference delay (as opposed to an actual distance measurement as I had before) and a tiny .58ms delay to the right hand speaker does an amazing job of altering the soundstage. Just thought I would share my tinkerings! 
which supplier did you get the dac from Tim?
I got mine from Scan UK they were a good price and had it in stock…
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My USB cable is a Morrow Audio Reference. I have also added an Audioquest Jitterbug. The combination has made the sound quality better.
If you go to this link to HD600 EQ Settings you can find EQ settings for both graphic and parametric EQs. Don’t worry about downloading anything just copy the settings over to the EQ. Here are the settings for the HD600. These setting EQ the HD600 towards the newest Harman curve (which is a target curve based on the settings that most people prefer). These may not be perfect but they are a good starting point. I have used these for different headphones of mine and I always and up tweaking them a little bit, but not much. If you hate the way it sounds then you can find settings based on different target curves.
Parametric EQs
In case of using parametric equalizer, apply preamp of -6.8dB and build filters manually with these parameters. The first 5 filters can be used independently. When using independent subset of filters, apply preamp of -6.9dB .
| Type |
Fc |
Q |
Gain |
| Peaking |
25 Hz |
0.87 |
6.3 dB |
| Peaking |
4332 Hz |
6.8 |
2.9 dB |
| Peaking |
9346 Hz |
2.41 |
4.2 dB |
| Peaking |
11893 Hz |
1.55 |
2.3 dB |
| Peaking |
20166 Hz |
0.24 |
-10.7 dB |
| Peaking |
185 Hz |
1.22 |
-1.9 dB |
| Peaking |
618 Hz |
1.42 |
1.0 dB |
| Peaking |
3143 Hz |
4.78 |
-2.4 dB |
| Peaking |
5979 Hz |
6.09 |
-4.2 dB |
| Peaking |
6374 Hz |
3.32 |
2.8 dB |
These are the recommended settings, but you can look through settings from different sources for the HD600 and pretty much any other headphone out there by going here.. Don’t worry about downloading anything just copy the settings over to the EQ
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That’s great @AnimalOnDrums! I’ll have a play with those many thanks (not sure how to apply a preamp reduction on the RME though?)
I would try them using using the Roon parametric EQ first. On the right side of the EQ there is a vertical slider that controls the pre-amp. If you have headroom set, then you don’t need to lower the pre-amp as much. Since these aren’t convolution filters, they should not produce a veil. But if they do, then try using the EQ on the RME DAC. I do not know how to turn down the pre-amp on that unit off the top of my head though. Look in the manual, that DAC has so many freakin menus and settings that its got to be in there somewhere 
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Your right about the menus and settings, I got lost in there for two days, only found my way out by accidentally pressing Encoder 2 three times! 
I decided I’d never use all those features so went for a straight headphone amp in the end.