[scblock]

I would caution against applying an EQ curve to headphones without review beforehand. If EQ includes large boosts (which the example image and table shows) that can easily introduce clipping distortion if applied linearly without appropriate headroom adjustments.

Additionally, depending on transducer performance large bass boosts may simply increase transducer distortion in the bass frequency. Some headphones respond well to EQ, and others not so much.

I am not opposed to EQ, but it should be applied judiciously, and at least partially by ear. I don't believe trying to exactly match a target curve will necessarily provide good results compared to a more judicious approach.

[sanjiwatsuki]

AFAIK, every tool that integrates with these things apply a negative boost equal to the peak added to avoid clipping.

[dsr_]

And every recommendation on the site starts with the appropriate amount of negative gain.

But if you miss it, somehow, then setting it to the next whole number of decibels larger than the largest gain will do.

[dumpsterdiver]

> I am not opposed to EQ, but it should be applied judiciously, and at least partially by ear. I don't believe trying to exactly match a target curve will necessarily provide good results compared to a more judicious approach.

Agreed. While matching generalized target curves are really helpful when applying EQ to sound waves in a music production setting, from a listeners perspective EQ is going to rely much more upon personal preference.

I've always struggled balancing the subsonic portion of my mixes with the higher ranges, and often times I've ended up with way too much bass, or not enough making my mix sound very thin and unbalanced. Using Izotope's Ozone 8 Tonal Balance Control, it gives me a visual representation of where my track meets or misses a target curve based on genre. So for instance, I can see that the subsonic region of my mix far exceeds the subs in a target curve for rock music, and then adjust the eq on the instruments that fall within that spectrum accordingly. That's super helpful for getting me into the ballpark of a "recognized tonal range for a specific genre", but I fully expect people to adjust the EQ to their own tastes once I get into that ballpark.

That being said, while I expect people to adjust EQ to taste, I'd also like to point out that EQ choices made in the production phase are often intentional creative decisions. That is to say, sometimes artists may want to intentionally go against accepted norms and try something new with their frequencies. Imagine if 70 years ago someone made an Auto-EQ for the music that was popular at the time and then applied it to dubstep music being produced today - it just wouldn't work. When an artist masters a mix, that's how they want it to sound. Similarly to how a chef might be insulted if you poured a bunch of a salt on the dish they just served you without even tasting it, a producer could be similarly insulted if listeners blindly apply EQ to their work before taking time to appreciate what the artist's original intent was.

[scblock]

As an example of my point for using a judicious approach above, applying either of the sets of Sennheiser HD8XX measurements and resulting AutoEQ curves from the Crinacle and oratory1990 folders in the Roon DSP system collapses the headstage and tilts the perceived tone of the headphones from relatively full and engaging with a dip in the 2-3 kHz region to thin and hollow, with an overly bright, brittle top end.

Also, these are two sets of measurements of theoretically the same headphones, each with 10 adjustment points, some quite broad, some very narrow. The overall shape of the resulting curve for the same target compensation is similar, but they have some significant differences in the specifics, and they sound different. We have to remember that measurement systems and individual measurement setup can vary quite a bit, so settings from this tool will bake all of that in as well.

As a comparison, based on review of the measured curves in more of a a big picture way, applying a much simpler EQ with a broad 1.5 dB bass lift up to about 100 Hz, another broad lift of about 3 dB around 2 kHz, and a slight drop of about 1 dB centered around 8 kHz brings the bass and vocals up a little but keeps headstage and overall tone intact. Maybe it's this particular DSP implementation, but I would be wary about trying to use any of the precompiled results directly. EQ can have real benefits, but is going to be more personal than automated settings will capture.