Equalizer settings

Sorry; I’ve been away for a while.

Yes; Jazz setting could be sharp on some material. Still, on well recorded music (Telarc, Blue Note, Sheffield Lab, etc) it sounds very good.

I was fooling around with custom settings trying to get as close as possible to Jazz equalizer and I think that I came pretty close. Then I’ve  added a click or two on lowest bass (first bar on left) and took a click on hights. So, here is my custom eq from left to right: +5 , -3 , +1 , +4 , +7 . If you still find it too agressive, lower click by click last two bars on the right. If you find it too heavy on bass go down a click or two on the first bar on the left.

The second bar from left (-3 in my case) is for upper bass region but it also affects the mids - don’t go to hight there.

The normal eq setting suppose to be flat - maybe it is, but it sounds to me like there is a slight ‘‘hill’’ in the middle of the equalizer and there is a bit of an echo too. Human ears are more sensitive to some frequencies, so flat doesn’t always sounds ‘‘flat’’.

Does the equalizer only work for Music? I have noticed that it does not work for the radio.  Is that the case for others?

I believe you are correct in that the EQ only works on music you’ve loaded onto the player. It _ does not _ work with the FM radio.

I use “U” custom with a little mid range. I have the bass and treble a little high.

Hi,

i’ve come up with a different EQ. Until recently i was using this custom EQ: +2 +1 0 +6 +8

It was ok but very close to the Jazz mode.

Now i’m using this one: +6 +2 0 +6 +12

It’s much more dynamic and open than the Jazz mode (i wouldn’t dare to compare it to the other modes…), i’m really satisfied with this setting, whichever headphone i may use (which includes my Westone IEM).

The EQ adjustment on the Clip(and Fuze), in general, you should only use it to compensate for subpar headphones. It definitely drops the volume when you use the Custom settings, at any rate. I almost always use the normal setting(perfect for KSC-75’s) The only preset that’s good is the Jazz mode, as several have mentioned. My Sony MDR-V150’s, on the other hand, are bassy and muddy, so…-2, -2, 0, +12, +12…looks extreme, but it’s the only way to balance them out…not the best $18 I ever spent, but I can’t wear the clip-ons all the time either:wink:

Well i get a much better sound with my Denon D1001 (which is not really a cheap headphone) and my custom EQ. And it’s also much more powerful than the normal mode! You simply have to add high like you do with your Sony headphone. Also it’s not a big deal if you lose volume when EQing, it’s the same on many audio players, it just prevents from saturation.

To me the flat EQ is just bad on the Clip, and the more i compare, the more i’m sure of that.

Message Edited by mobbaddict on 11-20-2008 05:07 AM

Recently I was playing with WM Player WOW effect. Then I start to compare the sound with the Clip and it seems to me that flat EQ on the Clip has some sort of WOW effect - it’s hard to notice but I think it’s there.

Is it just me or does anybody else can hear this?

Relly good settijngs befor i just turned them the same **bleep**ed up my ears and herd a ring untell now thanks

ryand8776;

would you be so kind and explain it in other words. My english a is little rusty.

Barbara Billingsley (Beaver’s mom) in the movie Airplane, “Excuse me Miss, I speak jive!” :smileyvery-happy:

Barbara Billingsley (Beaver’s mom) in the movie Airplane:

 “Excuse me Miss, I speak jive!” :smileyvery-happy:

:wink:

Mine is really weird and sometimes unpleasent.[?] Mine is 12, -12, 12, 4, -12[sometimes i switch to 12]

I’m not sure but the middle one or the first one might control volume. 1 is pitch, maybe the 2nd one, 1 is rhythm, etc.

It’s the same as any equalizer: left controls bass, middle controls mids, right controls highs.

I think the main thing that people are missing in this thread is that the headphones/earphones you’re using are going to drastically influence your sound and thus what the best equalizer setting is for you. I’ve tried 4 sets of headphones and the cheap ones needed a LOT more messing with the EQ.

What would be great is if we could get some people with good ears in here to give us some good balanced EQ settings for different headphones/earphones. So far I’ve found that the custom EQ needs to get bumped about 4 clicks to equal the volume of the “normal” setting. I’m going to be using mainly Etymotic ER6-i earphones and I would like to boost the bass just a little bit without it getting muddy, but when I boost the lowest frequency it seems a little muddy to me. Suggestions?

I just got the 4gb model, and I really like it. My custom EQ is set at +6, +8, +8, +10, +12

What headphones/earphones?

I was curious about the eq. working, so I made some “homemade” measurements, nothing professional, but I don’t want that precision.

I simply connected the audio output of my Clip into the line-in of my soundcard (an Infrasonic Quartet PCI) and ran a realtime analyzer software, letting play some test signals from the Clip, encoded in FLAC.

Firstly, I use a pink noise to determine where every single band of the equalizer takes place, so I discover:

  • 1st band: it’s a “low shelf” filter with cutoff freq. around 150 Hz (here’s the reason of the muddy sound in that region, 150 Hz is too high)
  • 2nd band: it’s a “peak shelf” filter with center frequency around 400 Hz
  • 3rd band: another “peak shelf” filter with center freq. around 1.1 KHz
  • 4th band: another “peak shelf” filter with center freq. around 3.3 KHz
  • 5th band: it’s a “high shelf” filter with cutoff freq. around 8 KHz

Then I use a pure sine-wave sound at 400 Hz to test the single band gain, remember that you can go up by 12 steps and down by another 12 steps; I discovered that every single step corresponds 1 dB of gain (positive or negative), so full-up you have 12 dB of boosting, or full-down a 12 dB of cutting. I did not tested the other frequencies as I supposed the same behaviour.

You noticed that when the custom eq. is selected, a pre-attenuation will occur, strangely this attenuation is not -12 dB as supposed to be, but only around -5 dB.Those 7 dB of boost in addition don’t make the sound distorted anyway, which is good, but it reveals that the Clip maximum output is not “maxxed out” but there’s some room (unused if you don’t use custom eq.).

Sorry for the technical language (and my approximated english), maybe someone doesn’t understand, but I hope that these info’s will be useful for tuning your custom eq. :wink:

Good Music

Massimo 

Message Edited by bYOndo on 12-28-2008 02:56 PM

Excelent work Massimo !

Your measurments explain a lot - the lower band frequency is way too high. It doesn’t make sense - why they’ve put it so high? I would expect the first band around 80Hz.

 I guess this can be fixed with the firmware.