I figured out how to turn on the EQ in Foobar, but I still can't figure out what I should set each slider to. Can someone tell me what the ideal settings would be for Rock music? Is there any plans for presets?

Well at the moment, it seems that you can only attenuate the frequencies and not boost them, So it's kind of difficult to recommend an EQ setting. EQ is often based on taste and the individuals hearing. Try playing with the middle frequencies (middle sliders), as these will have the biggest effect on the overall tonal balance of the track. The lower sliders will affect the bass and fullness, and the higher sliders will affect the treble and crispness. Just use those as guidelines and have a fiddle.

It would be good to have some sort of decibel indicator for the EQ, although i'm sure that's on PP's todo list.

The foobar EQ has a huge range, the dB scale goes from 0 at the top to about -80dB at the bottom I'd guess - it's as good as -infinity.

-96dB actually, copied from dsp_supereq

I don't want make FB2k all WA like, but is eq preset thing being considerd
for future release?

An EQ is supposed to be used to attain a flat frequency response from the loudspeakers, correcting for speaker and room flaws, etc. Considering that, a "recommended" setting wouldn't really do much good without having this data from the person beforehand. It seems that many people use EQ's more to tweak the music to "sound better" but this is not really what EQ's were designed for.

Also, I don't think you will see this EQ ever allowing for boosting of frequencies.

Can I just ask why the boosting of frequencies will not be implemented? Nearly all mixers have a decibel range of +10/20 to - inf. On a set of crappy speakers that require a bass boost, it's easier to just to boost the low end (and lower a pre-amp), than attenuate mid+high (and raise the preamp)? Surely both methods are prone to the same clipping?

analog audio processing != digital audio processing. "boosting" frequencies or whatever will destroy dynamics. and if you want to do it so badly, use preamp DSP, thats what it's for.

Thanks for the response. As a music tech student, i'm always interested to learn and understand new things like this. If anyone can spare the time to tell me why "boosting frequencies" destroys dynamics in the digital domain, that would be great.

What about specific presets for different speaker setups then? I'm talking about cheap multimedia speakers without any external amplifiers... Sub $500 class...

It is not possible, since every speaker setup has differen characteristics.
But presets would be nice, I sometimes switch between loudspeakers and headphones.

Ehh... So you mean if I buy two identical multimedia speaker sets, I will not get the same audio from them(!?) That doesn't sound right if you ask me. I can understand if the environments they are placed in changes the sound a bit, but that shouldn't affect the sound in such a large scale that the two systems sound absolutely 100% different... More like 10%...

Or...?

I think Bedeox misunderstood you (as I did), thinking that you meant "one preset for ALL multimedia speakers". I re-read your post and then understood what you meant (different speaker setups each get their own preset).

Correctional presets for popular speakers (like those Klipsch X.1 THX speakers) would be kinda neat. Maybe the presets could be in the same format that the Winamp SuperEQ plugin uses, so people could build them now, or import the ones they used from Winamp. But then Peter would have to implement the Parametric Equalizer as well as the Graphic Equalizer... which would be a nice addition, by the way!

Cheap multimedia speakers sub 500$ class? You'll get pretty good speakers for 500$, so I guess this is a typo.

Cheap could mean alot of things, considering there are speakers that cost more than a house.

500 bucks isnt *really* cheap to me, but it wont get you very far if you want a more audiophile-esk sound (flat/open/responsive/frequency-range)

But who knows, theres like a bazillion and three speaker manufacturers out there, and even lil guys still making custom boxes if you look around.

But yea, 500 aint the Hilton of multimedia playback... but its pleanty fine for most people. Like the Klipsches... or Jamo, Boston Acoustics, Cambridge, etc, etc, etc... to infinity


buzzword 101.....
"Entertainment Quality"


jesseg

Common mistake when thinking in SEK (or any other currency I imagine) but writing USD/EUR. I'm sometimes surprised when looking at prices in USD how cheap it looks, then I remember the exchange ratio and it's suddenly expensive...

(ratio is 1:10, and then the pricerange is about right for cheap multimedia speakers.)

Is there any pre-set?

how to get such preset in a 'home' enviroment? (what kind of mic to use and stuff like that), or is that practicaly not possible?

Gated measurments.

You dont need to use eq. Errors should be dealt in the crossover. Huge errors could be tuned out with ear. The following might help:
Sound colorations and their related frequencies:

Referencing Martin Colloms' "High Performance Loudspeakers", 4th Edition, page 393, Table 8.6:

COLORATION

Boomy 50 - 80 Hk
Chesty, plummy 100 - 150 Hz
Boxy, hollow 150 - 300 Hz

Tube like, tunnelly 400 - 600 Hz
Cupe like, honky 700 - 1.2 kHz
Nasal, hard 1.8 - 2.5 kHz

Presence,upper hardness, wiry 2.5 - 5.0 kHz
Sharp, metallic, sibilant 5.0 - 8.0 kHz
Fizzy, gritty 10 - 15 kHz

I have found this to be fairly accurate.

OK now another thought: bad speakers dont have baffle step loss compensation in crossovers. If your speaker is too forvard then about -6dB starting from 400Hz(depends on baffle size) and up may turn your speaker listenable, add a bbc dip (2kHz narrow -3dB dip) to make a speaker less fatiguing...

BTW:

My personal XMMS plugin has a real "equalizer".
You can equalize known defects of headphones and loudspeakers.

For every device you have a list of [Hz, dB] pairs and a parametric
equalizer with this frequency response will be calculated.

Currently are supported:
- AKG K-401
- AKG K-501
- Canton Ergo 22 DC (nearly nothing to do)
- Sonus Faber Amati Hommage
Configuration is done by recompiling, installing and restarting Xmms dues to missing select boxes.

You can
- equalize (correct frequency response)
- colorize (add a given frequency reponse)
- equalize + colorize

Four problems:
- need two select boxes in XMMS (equalize, colorize)
- need two select boxes in WinAMP (equalize, colorize)
- must digitalize ca. 300 frequeny response on paper + 30 frequeny responses as PNGs
- the remaining graphic equalizer now uses the frequency: 32/63/125/250/500 Hz, 1/2/4/8/16 kHz but the GUI shows the old frequencies

Bugs:
- possible clicks between titles when using equalizer
- equalizer only correct for 44100 Hz

smok3:



Perhaps this page by Naoki is roughly what you're looking for?