How to: Making more realistic bass using the custom EQ!

MP3 players Sansa Fuze
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DISCLAIMER: If Mentioning Rockbox is against the rules in this Forum, Please Edit this post. Thank you.

English is not my Native language, so excuse grammatical and spelling errors.

Values used in this guide is my own preference and not a necessarity, this is just a guide to show the Difference and result, using my own Values.

Introduction: After using my e250 for 3 years with the Rockbox firmware it broke. The thing that broke was that I could only get sound to the left earplug which proved to be the headjack on the e250 that was broke. Anyways, I got a Sansa Fuze in Christmas present and I quite like it so far. Except one thing, which I’m going to bring up in this post. This thing is the bass management, or bass in general.

Although the Media Player is great, the sound is lacking compared to Rockbox. So on to the real thing.

The Equalizer: The Equalize consist of 5 “Bands” that you can change up and down, increasing or decreasing the column of certain Frequency areas of the output. The Equalizer may look something like this:

Custom EQ
Custom EQ800×532 9.3 KB

 As you see, the lowest band is pretty High, which is the bass one. So basically I just increased the volume of that band, but there’s a problem. If we take a closer look.

This is the Frequency’s the Bands are set to. This is only EXAMPLE Values, I’m not saying these are the correct ones, although I’m pretty sure that the lowest one is correct (Which we focus on anyway).

Since the Bands have fixed values, to smoothen up the differences the values fades into eachother. Like this:

In my personal preferences I want the deepest bass to be highest, slowly getting lower and lower into the 1k, and then up to 16k. But with the EQ in the firmware were unable to do so. As you see, I added the value “60” into the EQ, which is normally where the Deep bass is. And that’s the one I want highest.

The Solution:

So how can we make the 60 value have a higher volume than the 100?

Basically. We think the opposite. This is really all about thinking OUTSIDE of the box.

So what happens if we flip the EQ upside down?

 While it may look cluttered and wrong (Which it is) I want you to take a look at the region between 0 - 100 Hz, as you see the 60 Hz now have a higher volume than the 100 one. Which lead us in the right direction. But we want the rest of the EQ to be proportional to what it was before.

Now the 60 Hz is higher than the 100 Hz, and the other bands are equal to what they were before in allignment to the lowest EQ.

Volume
Volume800×532 9.3 KB

Simply turn up the Master volume now since it will be lower due to lowering all the bands.

Now, this won’t be as good as if we could simply turn up the lower Frequency’s like we can on Rockbox, but it’s better than nothing. And good enought in my opinion. Some may experience a Difference and some wont. But also remember that your Earplug/speaker Equipment has it’s limitations too.

You may have to experiment a bit with the Values of the bands to find what suits you best, this was just Example values that was used (The ones I have on my Fuze).

Hope this was to any help, Thank you.

Did it work? Anything to add/correct? Any feedback is appriceated :slight_smile:

Message Edited by Chrisse on 12-25-2009 07:32 AM

Message Edited by Chrisse on 12-25-2009 09:42 AM

Message Edited by Chrisse on 12-25-2009 03:11 PM

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74 Views and no reply? Some feedback guys :slight_smile:

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Chrisse wrote:
74 Views and no reply? Some feedback guys :slight_smile:

You didnt post a question. Everything is pretty self explanatory, I use a third party headphone that supplies more than enough bass so read it and moved on. I suspect their are others who have similar needs to you and will find this very useful. Something you might venture to explore is the effect on the battery life that this has, because whether you care about it or not others will. 

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Yeah, what i meant was Feedback on the Guide. Did it work? Anything to add/correct? etc. I use a third party Headphones aswell which Provieds good bass, but i wanted a bit more than the Player offered and after some thinking and experimenting i came with this. I beleive i did this with the e250 Aswell before i got Rockbox on it. I have not tested Battery Life on this. But normally the Equalizer shortens battery life when activated so i beleive it does, don’t know by how much tho.

But thanks for the reply, i’ll update the First post aswell!

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Chrisse, what amuses me is that you expected immediate testing and feedback from others on Christmas day. I’d lower your expectations a bit, since you’re expressing outrage about the free time of others.

And, if others have no worries about the bass on their Fuze, they also will not be inclined to test your theory about the Fuze’s operation.

My suggestion would be to run your own tests.

First, record uncompressed full-spectrum white noise to a .wav file and transfer it to your Fuze. Play the file back with no EQ while recording the output to your computer. Look at the the spectrum, just to see that the Fuze is outputting the full spectrum it should.

If the Fuze is tossing out parts of the spectrum without any EQ, then it might not matter what you try. However, if the Fuze is putting out everything that should be in the file, then you can do the same experiment, but messing with the EQ bands in the ways you posted about, trying both the normal above-zero settings, and then your experiment, and see how it affects the spectrum.

I’m sure the results will be interesting, but I don’t care enough to even use my EQ in the first place. Your results, though, will prove helpful to those who might want to try this in the future.

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The Fuze equalizer isn’t implemented well enough to bother with, unless you are using low-range headphones in desperate need of help. You’re best off finding a pair of headphones/earbuds/IEM’s that work well with it. The sound signature of the Fuze with EQ set to Normal is very clean and pure, if you have the right headphones (or stereo) hooked up to it. If you must have “moar bass” then add the right headphones and a portable amp with a bass boost circuit into the mix. :wink:

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<Quote>

Chrisse, what amuses me is that you expected immediate testing and feedback from others on Christmas day. I’d lower your expectations a bit, since you’re expressing outrage about the free time of others. <Quote>

I’m really sorry if this what your impression was, which it absolutely wasn’t my meaning. And i’m not meaning to express any outrage about free time of others either, i just thought, those views and no thoughts. But of course, i can’t demand any of you to test anything and maybe my expectations was a little high about anyone having tested it yet. 

Anyway from my own tests and experience of this, it actaully has an effect, and should not lower the battery by any more than a normal eq setting does :slight_smile:

Message Edited by Chrisse on 12-26-2009 09:17 AM

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Using the equilizer will greatly reduce battery run time. It will also reduce sound quality. I suggest that it not be used.

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@jk98 wrote:
Using the equilizer will greatly reduce battery run time. It will also reduce sound quality. I suggest that it not be used.

Agreed…100%

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I actually find the equalizer to improve sound quality when used right. But thats personal preference though.

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Chrisse wrote:
I actually find the equalizer to improve sound quality when used right. But thats personal preference though.

I used to use the EQ on my Fuze with one pair of headphones that I have, and it helped somewhat. But then I got a player from a another company that had a more effective EQ, and suddenly those same headphones could be made much better. I guess if the Fuze EQ works for you, that’s great…but I’m not impressed with it. It’s one of the few things I would change about it, actually…I have fond memories of my Fuze, it was my first mp3 player, after all.:wink:

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Well, the way you’re using the eq, turning down the higher freq bands rather than simply boosting the low freq band, should actually improve battery life. The flaw in the diagrams is that there is usually overlap between the bands causing peaks and valleys in the frequency response curve, which IMO is something to be avoided.

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qualityaudio wrote:
Well, the way you’re using the eq, turning down the higher freq bands rather than simply boosting the low freq band, should actually improve battery life.

Nope. We heard it from a Sansa employee months ago that the custom EQ was a battery eater, an additional 10% IIRC. Notice how the overall volume lowers when you move even one slider off the flat line? I’m pretty sure that is from the extra juice is going to the EQ.