The HD800 EQ-ing Thread

Discussion in 'Modifications and Tweaks' started by TwoEars, Mar 29, 2016.

  1. OJpos

    OJpos New

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    Any advances on this front? What are folks using now to EQ their facetweeters?
     
  2. abraxas666

    abraxas666 Friend

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    Considering the Loki is out, I would love to see people share their settings.
     
  3. sorrodje

    sorrodje Carla Bruni's other lover - Friend

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    RME ADI2 pro 5 bands PEQ. :)
     
  4. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    SDR mod (thanks @sorrodje) and some bath mat liner (thanks @Serious ) helped for me. If I'm playing from the computer, I will sometimes dial a little Sonarworks in with the HD800 average profile and the flat preset- the wet/dry control means you don't have to be too heavy-handed.

    (Though I do still have to be in the mood or specifically in need of the extra resolution to abandon the HD650, which generally suits me better.)
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2017
  5. OJpos

    OJpos New

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    The HD800 is tough to EQ with iterative listening sessions. Certain recordings just don't spotlight the issues. I can see why a hardware EQ with a few preset options could make sense if you listen to a wide swath of tunes.
     
  6. bengo

    bengo Friend

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    I don't own the HD800, but a (used?) Behringer DEQ2496 is at the minimum a cool looking toy and a TOSLINK to AES converter. You can do pretty advanced EQ (also dynamic EQ if you want to play with that) and save presets. The UI is not too tricky once you get used to it. To my ears it is transparent and doesn't seem to add any digital nasties.

    Put this between your digital source and DAC. You can also use the builtin DAC and/or ADC if you want.
     
  7. sorrodje

    sorrodje Carla Bruni's other lover - Friend

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    Just use sweeps and/or pink noise to find the spot your ears tells you to fix by EQ. Music tells you if your settings still let you enjoy your listening sessions or not. I discovered that, in my case, fixing the FR to make a Sweep sound flat to my ears is not the best for my music enjoyment so I worked on a middle way .
     
  8. OJpos

    OJpos New

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    I'm very happy with Jrivers DSP suite although I haven't done extensive comparisons.

    My intuition tells me more components in the chain will generally not yield the same level of transparency, but guys who are running CD transports w/ HW EQ might have the leg up anyway

    I was really more interested in your guys EQ settings in the first place
     
  9. Ringingears

    Ringingears Honorary BFF

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    OK. I'll take the dive. Using Garage 1217 Horizon III and LPS my HD800 settings are 1) 20 Hz knob at about 4 o'clock. 2) 400 Hz knob about 11 o'clock. 3) 8 kHz at 11:40. Or sometimes at center. Just a touch on that one. Have bumped the 2kHz knob up clockwise a pinch on some recordings. But I am finding I change settings with the album more often than I thought I would. More material out there that needs a bit of EQ help than you would think. Ask LFF. Small adjustments are the key most of the time.

    I would be onboard for a more advanced version down the road with my experiences so far.
     
  10. Zed Bopp

    Zed Bopp Friend

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    Yeah, it's really not all that difficult - you tone down the highs, maybe boost the upper mids @ 2k and compensate for the subs roll-off. (Keep the tunings within 1-3db to not screw things up too bad.)

    I use a simple iTunes 10-band EQ with a 2-3db boost in the 32- and 64hz bands with a slight 1-2hz cut at mid-bass (125hz). It works nicely if you know what to do with it. Getting that 10-band EQ to work takes some work though.
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2017
  11. Ringingears

    Ringingears Honorary BFF

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    Mostly, I just listen carefully until I find "the spot". Will be somewhat different for each individual taste. And don't be afraid to cut if needed. It will improve things more often than you might think.
     
  12. LSW

    LSW Facebook Friend

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    I have been experimenting a bit with Equalizer APO. It's kind of an unstable program on my machine. Here are my settings:


    +2.5db 24 db/oct low shelf at 40hz

    +7db 24 db/oct low shelf at 80hz

    +1db at 2.5khz Q 3.0

    +3db at 4khz Q 3.0

    -4db at 6khz (this is even after I did the Super Dupont mod) Q 10.0

    +3db 24/db oct high ashelf at 15khz


    [​IMG]

    Measured response of my HD800 without EQ:[​IMG]

    Subjectively sounds a lot better to me. The HD800 sounds thin like an etymotic IEM without the 100 and 40 hz shelves to me, haha. It does seem to take the EQ without too much added distortion. Outside the bass boosting the 4khz probably makes the most difference. It actually starts to sound a bit veiled without the 4khz boost, but I have to be really careful with it, guitars can start to sound tizzy/hot if I boost it too much.

    It sounds more like my campfire vega now but with soundstage.
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2017
  13. swhyte

    swhyte New

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    @TwoEars
    It seems the pictures of your settings are no longer available? Are you able to post them again or jot down the settings in text format so we can try them out still?
     
  14. TwoEars

    TwoEars Friend

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    I had a look around and it seems that unfortunately both the images and my settings may have been lost to the ether. With a different DAC and some other tweaks I've managed to move my system in a direction were I don't feel I need the EQ anymore so I made no effort to save on my computer anymore.

    But the general idea is to lift up the bass below 100Hz or so by maybe +3-4dB, and also the midrange around 1000-4000Hz in a similar but smooth fashion. Some others users in the thread have the right idea.
     
  15. Zed Bopp

    Zed Bopp Friend

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    That's pretty much what I've found very enjoyable using the 5-band EQ on ADI-2 DAC. Here's where I ended up...
    • +6db 20hz, Q 0,5 (basically the gradual bass drop off reversed, some sub-emphasis... for more midbass just bring up the hz's a bit)
    • +1,5 2,9khz, Q 1.5
    • -6db 6,5khz, Q 4.5 (this makes them quite non-fatiguing, some might like less cut here)
    • -2db 7.0khz, Q 0.5 (same as previous)

    I listen to lots of rock and metal where cymbals can get get pretty hot and irritating, EQ is a must for me with the 800. I find these setting preserve some of the extra excitement in the highs HD800 is known for.
     
  16. swhyte

    swhyte New

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    No problem @TwoEars , thanks for the tips anyway!
    And thanks @Zed Bopp , I'll give those settings a try also :)
    Cheers!
     
  17. gepardcv

    gepardcv Almost "Made"

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    Try this with the ADI-2. This'll get you pretty close to the Olive/Harman curve on the HD800. You'll need to use band 1 for the low-shelf filter, and you'll need to approximate where RME decided to arbitrarily make its parameters coarser or more limited than the settings call for.

    The rest of that directory has many other delicious equalizer settings. The author generally goes for 10-band PEQ, which is unfortunately more than the ADI-2 supports, but I asked him to make several other 5-band settings.
     
  18. Ardacer

    Ardacer Friend

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    Equalizer apo is cool but breaks the protected audio chain rendering some apps like netflix soundless. Not that it matters that much, just chiming in.

    I've had a good time with voicemeeter banana (free-donationware) - amazing piece of software for windows, check it out, and am currently eq-ing hd800, el8-c and dt770 through a minidsp 2x8.
     
  19. Zed Bopp

    Zed Bopp Friend

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    Here's a bit of a story of me, HD800 and EQ curves..

    I started my equalizing journey with HD800 (the day I got them basically) with some crude 10-band iTunes EQing. Then went and used the Sonarworks True-Fi curve, which I found kind of dark, but quite nice with a bit of cut in the lows + boost in the highs from True-Fi's settings.

    Enter ADI-2 DAC. For my own 5-band curves I basically looked at several measurements of the hp (+ metal571's video about EQ'ing them, he tuned them too far into the bassy & dark territory imo, nice work anyhow) and started turning the measured dips into similar peaks and vice versa. After that I just started listening, an hour here and there and tuning my curve further.

    Looking back, the things I did "wrong" at first was a bit too large bass boost, it was basically just too high up. I hate bass bloom. My 6k dip was too wide too, it sucked the life out of percussion etc. Also I found I needed to forget the measurements somewhat when placing the upper mids boost. Listening with my ears vs eyes.

    In the end I did what I often do when mixing a track, just exaggerated the boost to really hear what it's doing then going back to a conservative number. Similarly, when I'm looking for stuff to remove I tend to boost the suspected frequencies by a huge margin (like 10db) to hear what sounds REALLY ugly. That is usually a good place to cut.

    I bet this is what lots of people hate about EQing, the fine tuning never seems to end. For one it's quite cheap at least :)
     
  20. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

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    I have to admit to listening with -3dB high shelf (starting in the bass) the last few days.... :eek:
     

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