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EQ, Mics, and REW, oh my!

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eq mics
4K views 30 replies 8 participants last post by  brucek 
#1 ·
Hi there... one thing that's always bugged me is getting my eq's set just right... and not just on my system, but friend's as well, where I'm not there every day to tweak here and there over time... I've been looking for an easy way to do this quickly, and I'm not just talking in the sub range, but all the way up... so I stumbled upon REW, and am condsidering which equipment to pair it with... I'm on a limited budget, I want to get some video equipment also, and my partner in crime already has an RS digital SPL meter...

I notice the REW literature that the RS is ok for "low frequency" measurements, and I see the correction file only goes up to 200Hz... Should I assume the RS meter shouldn't be used for measurements above 200Hz? Or is it's curve sufficiently close to C weighting above 200Hz to not need correction? In which case, what frequency can it be used up to?

I guess the same questions apply for the Galaxy (the correction file only goes to 200Hz?) and the Behringer (correction file goes up to 20kHz...)...

I'll have more questions I'm sure, but I'll start here... thanks in advance...
 
#27 ·
More people should read and re-read this line......

I have gone from 10 filters on my sub to get a perfect curve fit, to using only 3 filters to knock off peaks and it simply just sounds better even though the measured response is not exactly on the target line.

:T

brucek
 
#28 ·
One thing that stands out with only using 3 filters on my sub as opposed to 10 was that the transition area between subs and mains is very smooth and I only have to reverse the polarity (180 degree phase shift). Before I was getting dips in the transition area that I couldn't fully fix even with varying the phase in 5 degree increments. I was also hearing some strange subtle bass sloppiness in certain songs with playing frequencies around 70-150Hz. With 10 filters, I think there must be wild phase shifting going on.

I also have an AudioControl SA-3050A 1/3 octave spectrum analyzer which uses pink noise as the signal. When I plot these points, SPL levels match up almost exactly throughout the spectrum to a smoothed REW curve. I use the AudioControl mic with REW with a calibration file I created.
 
#29 ·

…someone who listened suggested boosting the treble a few days ago because he couldn't hear the attack in some cymbals, and I spent an hour trying to explain it was being heard as the artist intended, and boosting it for this disc would make it too bright for most other ...
Simple tone controls will do the trick without messing with overall system calibration. I use mine all the time when I run across treble-challenged programming and the reverse (which seems to be less common), and set them back to flat when I'm finished. Of course, I have simple knobs for my tone controls, which makes access quick and easy. Might not be the case with more recent receivers...

Regards,
Wayne
 
#30 ·
More people should read and re-read this line......

I have gone from 10 filters on my sub to get a perfect curve fit, to using only 3 filters to knock off peaks and it simply just sounds better even though the measured response is not exactly on the target line.

:T

brucek
I use one (1) filter to tame my 30Hz peak... :yay: Now if only I could tame my inner wall flexing 5mm whenever T-rex walk by, I'd be happy. There should be EQs for walls too! :rolleyes:
 
#31 ·
I use one (1) filter to tame my 30Hz peak...
Yeah, I have been an proponent of less is more for quite a while now. I use to have a perfect response that absolutely tracked the target line. It used just about every filter the BFD had to offer. It simply didn't sound that great.

Then I decided to use REW to measure at multiple positions and place all the responses on the AVERAGE tab to see the over-riding trend that all the results shared. I used the Average button to create a new response from all those results. I created my filters from that average response (REW allows this) and created only two filters to get rid of the major resonance. I then only used one more filter at the crossover area. So I've been using three filters for the last while, and it sounds much better, and in any position I sit.....

brucek
 
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