labelle@hplabsc.UUCP (WB6YZZ La Belle) (02/20/85)
I recently installed a graphic equallizer. Used to be from the
school of "flat is best". I even had a homebrew system at one time; the
preamp had "ON-OFF" and "VOLUME" controls only! Once about 5 years ago
I took home a spectrum analyzer, and a "warbler" (1/3 octave sweep oscill-
ator) and freq'd out my room. As expected, there were so many apparent
ups and downs (3-6 db mostly) that I figured equallization was a hope-
less proposition. I have a poor listening room anyway since the speakers
are mounted on a long, high wall facing another long, high wall. Since then
I think I subconciously ignored the abnormalities of my system- until
recently.
A month ago we re-arranged our living room in an attempt to get
a better listening room. Listening critically to my system on a Barbara
Striesand recording, I noticed a strong "resonance" or seeming response
peak in her voice which tended to make her words less distinct. So I
borrowed a new fangled equallizer with built in spectreum analyzer, pink
noise source, and mic. input and "freq'd" out my room again. LO AND BE-
HOLD! A large (6db) midrange peak at the octave centered around 500 Hz, was
responsible for the muddled voices. With an equallizer now permanently
installed, everything sounds great. My wife cannot really tell the difference.
But I most certainly can, even on instruments.
There was also a 4db peak about 60 Hz which I removed, the effect
of which I have yet to be able to determine.
As was written by Rick Chinn in this newsgroup a couple days ago
(tpvax!rzdz) the proper way to "equallize" is to simply remove large "wide"
peaks. These can be due to furnishings, room resonances, vibrating walls,
speaker/room interface- who knows? Also, do not attempt to boost the nat-
ural droop in the high freq. response; I did as an experiment and it was
atrocious!
My system now,
PREAMP Hafler DH-101 (Simple arrangement lots of inputs)
AMP Hafler DH220 (Blew tweeters with less amplifier)
EQUALLIZER Parasound EQ-300 (12 band,16Hz cut only)
SPEAKERS AR-LST's (Solid deep bass, still love'm)
CD PLAYER Teac PD-11 (Everything but remote control)
TURNTABLE Technics SL1200 (One of first Direct Drives)
CARTIDGE Micro-Acoustics 2002e (No complaints)
TUNER YAMAHA T1 (Older Slide rule dial I prefer)
CASSETTE DECK JVC KD-55 (3 head Dolby B-C)
GEORGE hplabsc!labelle