How to Optimize Your Home Theater Bass with PEQ
Vložit
- čas přidán 17. 06. 2024
- In this video, I demonstrate how to calculate Parametric EQ (PEQ) filters to flatten the bass response in your home theater. We first discuss what PEQ filters are and how to determine the center frequency, bandwidth and Q to make precise calculations for correction.
Remember this important formula: Q = Fc /(f2-f1) where
Fc = Center frequency
f2 (-3dB) of right side of the peak
f1 (-3dB) of left side of the peak
We talk about how the various brands of AV receivers and processors provide you settings to make these adjustments. We also discuss the importance of using multiple subwoofers to tighten up the seat to seat frequency consistency to make PEQ more effective for every seat.
We then do a case study of the bass response in the new #AHSmartHome across the front row of 4 seats to show you how to correct for a bass peak common at all of the seats. One filter will fix this bass bump at every seat location.
Remember, you should be getting good bass at EVERY seat, not just the Main Listening Position (MLP). Enjoy good home theater with your friends and loved ones, by giving them the same bass you're getting.
For the full written article on this topic, please visit: bit.ly/3tzYhHl
Audioholics Recommendations Amazon Shop: www.amazon.com/shop/audioholics
Audioholics Recommended Cables:
250ft CL2 12AWG Speaker Cable: amzn.to/2vwS9QH
50ft 10AWG Speaker Cable: amzn.to/3DeMTT5
Locking Banana Plugs: amzn.to/2ZQt15x
9ft 4K HDR HDMI Cables: amzn.to/2WiIXeD
Audioholics Recommended Subwoofers:
Monolith M12 V2 12” Subwoofer: bit.ly/3EUxoA9
SVS SB-1000 Pro: bit.ly/3c0rwsf
SVS PB-1000 Pro: bit.ly/3aWzdAg
Audioholics Recommended Electronics:
Denon AVR-X3700H 9.2CH AV Receiver: amzn.to/31UOD3Q
Yamaha RX-A2A: amzn.to/3kUYnTS
Denon AVR-X6700H 11.2CH AV Receiver: amzn.to/38zHjMr
Audioholics Recommended Speakers:
Monolith THX-460T Towers: bit.ly/3o4QGvT
Monolith THX-365C: bit.ly/3o7fbsh
SVS Prime 5.1 Speaker / Sub System: amzn.to/2GWoFCn
Polk R700 Tower Speakers: amzn.to/3BF2wC3
Klipsch RP-8000F Tower Speakers: amzn.to/2Vd8QQn
Sony SSCS5 Speakers: amzn.to/2ndEn56
Monoprice Encore B6 Bookshelfs: bit.ly/3mU7E0t
SVS Prime Elevation Surround: bit.ly/3BV0ayz
Definitive Technology 8” In-ceiling Atmos speakers: amzn.to/2ZYAILm
Follow us on:
Patreon:
/ audioholics
FACEBOOK
/ audioholics
TWITTER
/ audioholicslive
#bass #hometheater #parametricEQ
0:00 Introduction
1:02 What is a PEQ Filter?
1:21 Calculating Q
2:12 Seating Arrangement
2:35 Calibrate for All Seats
3:20 Make PEQ Effective for All Seats
4:00 REW Measurements
5:55 How to Access PEQ in Your AVR
6:58 History about Audyssey
7:55 Designing PEQ Filter
9:30 Before / After PEQ Results
12:28 All Seats After PEQ
13:20 Measurement Resolution Notes
14:07 Target Calibration for All Seats
14:44 Seat Location Tips - Věda a technologie
Yes, wanna see more how to calibrate subs with mini DSP
A similar presentation using the PEQ function now on SVS Pro subs would be useful and informative to an even wider audience.
I wish the svs has a 10 band peq, or at least 5. 3 is just not enough
@@overkillonslash agreed but the only subwoofer I know of that's close in price to SVS with peq is Rythmik and they only have 1 peq.
Thats true, somehow i think the dsp in the pb16 could have handled an extra 1-2 filters and be an even better bargain. At this point i think an external dsp solution like the mini dsp 2x4hd would still be much better in optimizing its performance than just relying on the app alone.
I second this! I’d love to see Gene give his tips on it.
This is the kind of content I'm looking forward to
Awesome Gene. Very timely video. appreciated!
Fantastic information Gene. Your presentation and patience for the rest of us is superb. You never talk down, but guide gently through a maze of information. Thanks so much.
Very nice video and useful info. Gene! Thanks. I like to delve into the 'meat and potatoes' of every aspect from initial setting up a theater to it's final calibration and making every tweek count!
Thank for that lesson …I understand the way you explain subject.. please keep it’s coming
Great upload Gene! I use manual PEQ in unison with the automatic filters generated by REW on my MiniDSP HD. Thanks to your very informative series and the community on the Audioholics forum I’ve been able to achieve -/+2dB from 15hz-140hz across 3 seating positions.
Great content as usual! 👏👏👏
Exelent video, been waiting for a long time to talk about Active powered speakers for Fronts. I got a pair of Triton Reference Golden Ear set up with two XXL supersubs on the backs....Awesome speakers
Interesting video. I’m always trying learn how to improve my theatre.
Thank you for the info. This is what I am working on with my yamaha receiver.
Thanks, very clear explanation. Something on room curves would be great!
Knew about PEQ for a few years but never used it before. My new 15inch woofer sealed subwoofer has parametric EQ.
Only one money seat 3 quarters from the front wall in my small living room home cinema.
I'll definitely rewatch watch the older, & watch future Audioholics parametric EQ videos to learn and put in the knowledge bank!
Thanks for explaining the simple math behind how to calculate the Q.
Yes I'd be interested in seeing how/what you do for your acoustic treatment changes.
Gene says that a 21hz peak around 7db needs flattening.😁
Love your work, Gene.
Thank you for educating us.
I love this lesson and used it in my Yamaha 5200 processor. What is funny is that i think we all perceive Bass a lot louder when compared with mids and so I needed to go -10 DB in order to flatten out my response.
President of Audioholics!!!!!!!!! Great video! I used the auto EQ in REW and only used like 3-4 whereas it had 10. Smoothed out the response. I also have a low shelf 50Hz 10dB house curve in my mini DSP that I added on top of the corrective filters.
Clever man 🙂👍🏻
Great video thanks. I have heavily treated my room to get a good response but need to add the finishing touches as I have a 7db peak around 20-35hz I would like to pull down a bit. Thank you edit. I have just realised I havent re measured since filling my whole front wall with 17" depth of Rockwool. I think just by the sound of it it has certainly helped with the rise in the low end. Im using 2 subs. I will remeasure and then use this video to help with PEQ. Thanks
Nice intro video.
In my experience a filter with Q higher than 7 (at bass frequencies) is inaudible. Also Q > 3 can slightly reduce rate of decay.
For multi seat, multi sub eq the best thing I’ve used by far, is MSO (multi sub optimiser), a free windows based program although I run it on a Mac with a cheap converter app. I have both Audessey and Dirac AVRs and MSO will do a better job in that specific scenario using a Minidsp.
In my home theatre I have 3 SVS PB-3000’s connected to Minidsp to provide a single sub out on the Arcam. Seating is 2x2 with back row on a riser and seat to seat variation is excellent.
Hi Gene & thanks again for your effort to bring some education/useful tips to masses! Me myself are now beggining to get deeper into the DSP/PEQ world adjusting my newly built sub and also because of you getting familiar with Q, gain and other phys. quantities. Are you planning some education on input vs output qualization ( benefits of using just output or input or both...)? Thanks
Gene, you're the man! 😃 I had a similar bump at 16 hz (4 SB-2000 Pro). I followed your instructions and calculated a -3dB gain with a Q of 2.666. I added that to the input channel on my MiniDSP 2x4HD (since the the individual subs are already using the PEQs in each output channel) and it brought that bump down just as expected. Thanks for the quick tip. Like yours the bump was present at that same frequency at each of my 5 seats, so doing that 1 filter fixed that issue across all seats.
Do one like this about optimizing dialog with PEQ please. That would also be helpful to a very large degree. Thanks!
Great stuff. Would love to see how measurements can be combined to determine what PEQ should be applied to multiple subs in different position. I.E. do you apply same EQ to all subs, or does it vary? Also, how can we get MiniDSP results, without a MiniDSP? Perhaps just using MultEQ X, and the PEQ on SVS subs?? Thanks for all you do!
Good topic....... it all helps dosent it? 👍🏻
Nice one Gene, could you do the same featuring Yamaha PEQ???
Interesting stuff! Would like to see more detail on your measurement process (some may have been in an older vid). For example are you testing L + R at the same time? With one sub at a time or both? Best spot to “hide” in the room so as not to effect measurements? Love the channel!
You want all subs and the mains playing at same time to see the summed response. Sometimes I do focus on 1 sub if i think I can dial it in better though.
I have headphones that need a bump from 2,000 kHz to 12,000 kHz. What octave should I use and what frequency.
More of this please! Bass is really hard to get right and while I like to think I have a pretty good understanding of bass management there's always more to learn. Thoughts on EQing each subwoofer independently?
Now thats another quagmire and days with a good mic REWing a room out...... good luck, and well done for realising that a graphic equaliser can be used as a PEQ..... clever man 🙂
Hello, longtime viewer and lover of everything Home Theatre.
Can you please tell me what smoothing you have applied to the bass reading in REW.
Thanks 👍🏼
followinng would ĺuv to have more of this.topic.
I’d love to see bass EQ optimization video integrated with transducers like Crowson Tech
In all speakers....... or a dsp that can manipulate sounds at speaker wire levels to go inbetween amps and speakers with banana inputs.....and outputs.....
Unrelated topic but do you plan on doing a video on the new Audyssey Multi EQ-X app?
YEs
@@Audioholics I look forward to it!!
Is this manual method preferable over something like using the EQ function of REW and calculating the PEQ for a MiniDSP 2x4HD automatically?
I guess so..... try both methods and see which sounds best to you?......
Do you have multiple mics or do you move 1 mic from seat to seat? Great video!
currently I just have one mic. I used to have a mic multiplexer which made things easier.
Hi Gene - excellent information as usual - thank you. One question and one observation:
1. How much smoothing do you use/recommended for equalising the bass frequencies. The REW manual and some other forums recommend not using any smoothing. Your views and experience would be highly appreciated...
2. Having used Dirac live on an AudioControl processor recently, I find that I prefer Dirac live 'off' and just used minidsp to equalise my two subs. There has been some recent discussion about room eq solutions not being ideal above the transition frequency of the room. Again - your views would be appreciated.
Thank you.
I use 1/24th octave smoothing which is sufficient for fullrange measurements and you loose very little resolution at bass frequencies. I also prefer manual EQ. I haven't had much luck with full bandwidth auto EQ.
@@Audioholics Thank you..
Great video Gene. Wouldn't something like Dirac Live Bass Control accomplish this and potentially even outperform since it's adjusting impulse response as well and handling multiple subs? I've tried to do manual EQ with REW and compared it to Dirac and Dirac always wins for me.
In theory yes. In practice I haven't been as lucky as you. I haven't run DIRAC on my new set up though but plan on it soon.
Ive heard so much about Dirac..... initially good and now more negative comments, im undecided tbh.....
You guys could you please make a video, about how to setup two subwoofers with cheaper avrs, that have parallel sub output? Not everybody can afford the high end ones.
Buy a minidsp, then you can have controll of each sub upto 4 individually 🙂
Hi Gene, do you always apply the same PEQ to all the subwoofers in a multi-sub or do you use different filters on each sub?
Looks like all here, as he did to his 2 fronts, i guess individual would be best, but it would take days REWing your room out to perfection 😂
O.K. I was silently pleading with you during this demo, to also include what I should set the subwoofer controls at. I have a HSU VTF-2 MK5. I have to decide: Phase, crossover frequency, crossover in or out. I only have at this point, half the equation. Can you help?
It would require a "home visit" and some specialist audio measuring equipement to take into consideration your home equipement and room acoustics......
Best you learn yourself, as theres no "Golden" figure here, your circumstances are different to everybody else's...... im surprised you haven't realised this after watching these videos......
How much knowledge have you in this field? or are you one of the "entitled" who expects everyone else to do your work for you?...........
For a PEQ filter, the Q is not the ratio of the center frequency to the 3 dB bandwidth. A PEQ filter can have a peak or dip of less than 3 dB, in which case the 3 dB bandwidth has no meaning. But the Q of a PEQ filter always has meaning! Robert Bristow-Johnson (RBJ) wrote a paper called "The Equivalence of Various Methods of Computing Biquad Coefficients for Audio Parametric Equalizers", in which he defines the bandwidth as f2-f1, where f1 and f2 are the two frequencies for which the boost or cut in dB is one-half the maximum (which occurs at the center frequency). So if you had a 10 dB boost or cut, it would be the 5 dB bandwidth. Although he doesn't mention Q in that article (he uses damping factor instead), in another one of RBJ's papers called "Cookbook formulae for audio EQ biquad filter coefficients", he defines the Q in a special way that's a little different from how it's defined in EE filter courses. When you combine the two results (using the Q and bandwidth as RBJ defines them), it works out mathematically that the Q is exactly the ratio of the center frequency to the half-boost/half cut bandwidth. I worked out the mathematical details of that in an article titled "Parametric Equalizer "Q" Definitions and Bandwidth". I didn't post links, as some youtubers automatically delete replies with links in them. A web search (including quotes) should turn up the three articles.
In the example of this video, the required cut for the filter is about 7 dB, so half of that is 3.5 dB, which is close to 3 dB. This makes the numerical value of Q, computed from the 3 dB bandwidth, very close to the exact value (which would be determined by the 3.5 dB bandwidth in this case). But for other cases where the boost or cut is a lot different from 6 dB, the error will be larger.
Thanks for your post. I will tell you nearly 100% of the time I calculate the Q of the bump using fc/(f2-f1) and apply a cut it works as expected with real in-room measurements. It may not be a perfect approximation but it is still an extremely useful tool to use.
@@Audioholics It's an easy change to use the exact result. If you need, say, a 10 dB cut, the Q is exactly fc/(f2-f1), where f1 and f2 are the 5 dB points. It's exact if you use the half-boost/half-cut bandwidth.
@@andyc.3893 Yea its why you make the correction and measure the result and adjust accordingly.
I think my High Q might be too low to grasp all this...
Gene, I calibrated a basically flat curve from 20-100hz and it sounds as if my subs are not even on. I increased the sub trim by 6db as a baseline and now it curves pretty smooth from 20-80hz but at 20hz its like 15db higher then at 80hz where it meets the mains. Am I crazy that it has to look like this to even hear the sub? I'm in a non-ideal room with no treatment and one sub.
Keep tuning, you rich folk will get there in the end....... im too busy helping starving children......
WAY COOL GENE
I just close my eyes and hope for the best…. What the he#@ Gene, are you suggesting this is the wrong method 😱🤬
Or another method, I let Trinnov do the eq and phase correction in the bass and I set the target curve that I like 🤗
Is it possible to benefit from PEQ with only one sub and no measuring equipment and no REW? (I'm using a SVS SB1000 pro in a 12ftx15ft room) Thanks 🔊👌🏻
Ofcourse......
Build a bigger box or buy a kit and transfir the sub driver and amp out of their box...... it will sound a million times better, than sell your box on to reclaim your costs.....
Hi, Gene, may I ask how many subs do you have? 4 Subs? what's the location of the subs? Seems 21hz is the 1st order Standing waves of the length and if you have four subs and get them properly located and time aligned, this standing wave should be able to cancelled using multi-subs. But in your video, it's there, why?
My subs aren't optimally located so that is part of the problem. However, the point of multiple subs isn't to cancel standing waves but to create a more even and consistent response from seat to seat by exciting the room modes. This allows EQ to become effective over a wider area as a result. Always better to cut a bump with EQ then cancel it with subs.
see: mehlau.net/audio/multisub_geddes/?fbclid=IwAR1TavoKfL8rFoH3a2sOB0SpZKTKNFUiJkSk1vNqCnWQwHEYI40BfTeuANc
Nice read...... negligible gain from 3 to 4 subs, non from 4 to 5 except headroom....... i also found interesting the comments about room treetment, i never knew there was a difference between low frequency and high frequency room treatments 😱 lol.....
Thank you 🙂👍🏻
That's all good as long as you're not introducing phase shifts with each filter you use.
You aren't. These are min phase.
@@Audioholics okay, what do you consider min phase in the audio band.
@@wally6193 Before making claims, check the research. Anytime you reduce the amplitude of bass energy in a room with EQ, it also improves the time domain behavior too. A Fourier transform proves this as well.
www.audioholics.com/home-theater-calibration/bass-optimization-for-home-theater
@@wally6193 www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=5163
@@Audioholics Gene, I wasn't making any claims I was simply asking what you consider min phase, or min phase filters.
Gene you have the same dip around the crossover I have, what causes this?
Many things, a light fixture in the ceiling, a doorway..... etc etc..... something you both have in common
My Yamaha RX-A1060 has only some given frequencies, you can not dial in xx.yy Hz. Thats pretty useless. Has this changed in newer models?
Yes...... neither can mine, i use Oinky lol
With denon amd audyssey mic hw to do thus bass response!?!
Hw do thrus len to write?...... 😂😂😂
Thank you for explaining! I was guessing the Q this whole time. *facepalm*
Would it have been so difficult to show a sweep using receiver legal sound measurement? We know you have all the toys.
What does that even mean?
Why would you want to tame down a 20 - 25hz peak? Why would we want big drivers with big amps for output at low frequencies and than tame them down? I dont get it
Because frequency peaks are very audible. If you flatten them, you linearize the bass. Then you can turn the bass level up without it sounding bloated or boomy.
I don’t think I have enough of a high iQ to be able to do this :(
Try....... ask a friend..... lol
Learning can be fun 🙂
The 'no snake oil' logo shouldn't have the 'no' in it. It's like a double negative.
Good point
@@Audioholics Thanks. Just wanted to be helpful. It's usually the other way around!
@@HeavyMetalSonicRM Can't believe I didn't see that when making it. LOL
Once you lower a peak on the frequency response of a sub you automatically lose grip and weight in that range and you're not going to have the same type of sound. It'll sound washed out, thinner and less impactful. you think it's just going to lower the volume on that frequency but it's more than that; that's not what the subwoofer wants to play, you're taking away the driver's true and full potential. yes now it's flat but it's a weaker response and it'll affect the type of music and scenes you'll want to hear. Test it with real tracks and songs, not swipe tones, because we're not microphones. That's the downside of EQ'ing. The solution would be perfect speaker/listener placement and mild upping of some dips along with a proper LPF and slopes
wrong.
Source? I'm going to guess... ''trust me bro''@@saulm5632
And if you're gonna have a hi-q then you're probably a Japanese poet....
LOL