Graphic Equalizers - What Settings Do You Use?

[Trav Le Bleu]

Myself I think they are the spawn of Satan. Changing the sound of the music from how it was recorded is, to me, the equivilant of reading a book and crossing out some words and inserting your own. Everytime I get into my work van (which i used by other people too) I find the bass and the treble turned to max and the music sounding terrible (all BAM BAM BAM! and TISH TISH TISH! with the vocal drowned out) and I have to reset it.

So flat settings for me, they seem like a pointless add-on. If anyone can convince me otherwise, it would be interesting. Do I just misunderstand the point of altering the music settings?

[The Doctor]

Isn't it mainly for phasing out bits of the tracks for certain purposes - i.e. removing vocals to create a background for adverts, call hold bits and other such rubbish?

Pointless for me so long as I'm using decent headphones/speakers - otherwise useful to improve bits that the headphones/speakers let me down on.

[Webbo]

There's nothing worse than having lopsided graphics.

[Saxondale]

Myself I think they are the spawn of Satan. Changing the sound of the music from how it was recorded is, to me, the equivilant of reading a book and crossing out some words and inserting your own.

I see your point but every sound system produces a different sound anyway, so you may as well tailor the ranges to suit your preferences (IMO).

[Houdini Logic]

But surely it'll never sound the same as it was recorded unless you spend thousands on some studio monitors.

Can only be a good thing if it makes certain music sound better, up to each individual to define what 'better' is...

[JadeFalcon]

they are also useful for overdriving the ranges your speakers are not good at reproducing, as most speakers home speakers are only optimal in certain ranges. you may have a bass driver that is good from 20hz - 120hz but it lacks power in the 80hz range, you can increase the power to the 80hz range with an equalizer.

you can buy/download cd's that have tracks on them for testing the effective ranges for your speaker, then use them in conjunction with your equaliser to get the best out of your kit

[Trav Le Bleu]

they are also useful for overdriving the ranges your speakers are not good at reproducing, as most speakers home speakers are only optimal in certain ranges. you may have a bass driver that is good from 20hz - 120hz but it lacks power in the 80hz range, you can increase the power to the 80hz range with an equalizer.

you can buy/download cd's that have tracks on them for testing the effective ranges for your speaker, then use them in conjunction with your equaliser to get the best out of your kit

Granted - I guess my gripe is not so much about them as people having them and not knowing how to use them - invariably they just think that more of everything is "good".

[Part Of The Crowd]

Graphic Equalisers are there to change the sound of your system, not the music. You taylor it until you find something that sounds nice. Un-EQ'd systems generally aren't the best sounding things in the world. Also different EQs are good for different genres of music, so if you've got a varied playlist, listen to a few different tracks with your selected settings and find something that suits all.

My preference is to give the mid range a little boost and to softly roll off the top and bottom ends.

[MrsJohnMurphy]

I guess no-one on here reads Hi-fi mags, any added circuitry between the source and the speakers (i.e graphic eq or even tone controls) is a bad thing, a well balanced set of separates doesn't need them. ( yes I am a hi-fi snob).

[Part Of The Crowd]

Only very minutely, and the benefits are really much better than going without.

It's why every live event you will ever go to will be running EQs for each element of the PA system.