Hi-Fi professional EQ settings

[Squddie]

I did some measuring with a measuring microphone and tried to get the EQ as linear as it gets easily.

There is a lot more work required, but I'm posting what I have since it will (probably ) be better than random.



Red is reference audio file before stereo system.

Green is uncorrected/linear.

EQ used for "4CH0-23" (not plain treble or bass used):

80	-10	# doesn't get the job done, maybe give up down there
200	+8
500	0	
1k	-4	# might be a mistake
2k	+8	
5k	+8	
10k	+8

Now, this isn't all there is. Just going linear is not always the most enjoyable music experience. Bending the EQ strongly always introduces oddities that bring the speakers off their "natural" responses, and the EQ might or might not have phase issues. So in general you want to take this as a starting point and tweak it. It will be better than starting from randomly poking around.

In particular here is what I will do from here:

• As mentioned, the 80 Hz thing is drastic but doesn't get the job done. It is safe to bring it back up according to taste since it doesn't interfere much with the rest
• The 1k drop is the most drastic curve adjustment. Bringing it back up softly is a good thing to try
• The rest if EQ matching. Try adjusting every setting to 1/3rd or 1/2 of what it is right now from 0

Hope this helps.

[F360C]

Wow this his is impressive... Thanks for doing the research for all of us!

[Squddie]

Well I hope I can bring out the big (measuring) guns today, because this is really challenging.

The EQ frequencies for our Z4 sit in more useful places than the Harman-Kardon nonsense, but it is not that they actually get the job done

[Squddie]

Here is what I like now after measuring more. I went through a round of pink noise but as expected, what I did in pink was not the same as doing it with actual music.

I did get all the individual EQ frequencies. The new settings also involve using the global (not in the EQ) "bass" control to get bumm bumm under control.

"bass" (base, not in the EQ) at -10
80Hz           -9
200Hz       +10
500Hz          0
1000Hz        0
2000Hz       +6
5000Hz       +6
10000Hz     +6

[Squddie]

Here is the problem. The EQ is very, very wimpy. It something like +-5 db if that.



The bass and treble control are more powerful but don't sit on excessively useful base frequencies:




I didn't work on integrating the treble control into the EQ adjustments.

[DaveJB]

I'm loving this post but can you summarize? Would it be fair to say start with the settings below and adjust to taste? I guess I'm asking because your 2nd set of suggestions are a bit different than the first. I have done exactly all this before with my father's help for one of my cars but it was about 24 years ago.

"bass" (base, not in the EQ) at -10
80Hz -9
200Hz +10
500Hz 0
1000Hz 0
2000Hz +6
5000Hz +6
10000Hz +6

[pungo]

Great work, someone needs to do this for an E86.

[DaveJB]

Originally Posted by pungo

Great work, someone needs to do this for an E86.

Doh! When I first joined this forum I thought this subsection was specific to the E86.

[pungo]

Originally Posted by DaveJB

Doh! When I first joined this forum I thought this subsection was specific to the E86.

Try these settings for your E86 as a starting point:
80Hz: +1
200Hz: -5
500Hz: -1
1kHz: 0
2kHz: +2
5kHz: 0
12kHz: +2

[StickMon]

HA! I didn't even notice the OP has an E89.