Here’s what I’m currently running, the main thing is it adds a little more body to female vocals and keeps them from being slightly nasally and thin. Also just the slightest sub bass bump and it sounds sooo freaking good. Your thoughts?
You should set your preamp setting to -2.00 to avoid clipping
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Why, specifically? A 2db bump isn’t going to make these clip.
There are both trains of thought in the car audio eq world, one camp is like ‘OMG you should never boost a frequency only lower’ another camp will boost several db with no issues.
I don’t like how far I have to turn the volume knob when I use metal571’s settings including the -2.5db preamp, that’s why I did it this way.
I mean I guess, but I have always kept it where the loudest point was 0db gain max for no clipping. In car audio it doesn’t really matter as much, but for headphones I have found that you can notice clipping sometimes even if it’s only a couple db over. You are clipping a digital signal, not an analog one
It does matter in car audio to me, I’ve just never seen a measured an audible issue from boosting 6db -IN GENERAL- or less, if you have headroom in the setup already.
What is clipping that you hear with headphones, the amp or the drivers?
Not trying to argue just learn if there’s something I’m missing.
To clarify I’m not talking about the “more bass until the windows explode” car audio crowd. I’m talking specifically about sound quality in car audio where we chase THE ideal frequency resonse, etc by using DSP / EQ, treatment, driver placement etc etc etc.
You are clipping the digital signal itself not the headphones/dac/amp. Digital clipping can be kinda nasty sometimes. With some analog studio eq’s I use I can boost a few db’s to the analog signal and be fine (although I tend to cut instead). With a digital signal you are essentially brickwalling the signal and turning it into a square wave once you go above 0db, and that’s audible. You don’t really have to worry about clipping in a 32 bit or 64bit audio, but almost all music is in either 16 bit or 24 bit which clipping can be noticeable.
Boosting ANY above zero induces digital clipping and turns the siqnal into a square wave? I don’t buy it.
For spl that’s typically fine, and eq is usally needed to actually get the numbers you want to pull. But headphones are going to be a fair but more detailed and you will notice clipping more weather it be analog or digital.
Again, not talking about SPL in the slightest… I’m talking about very detailed and meticulously set up and tuned car audio systems strictly for sound quality. Clipping in this scenario would show up on a graph and I’ve never seen / measured or heard it, ever.
I agree it’s better to cut in general if possible, but people are too afraid of going north of zero and it’s just generally not a problem, in my experience.
You can try this yourself if you want. If you have something like audacity you can go and try and raise the gain on a file and see what happens when you raise the gain where it clips after 0db
My bad, misread lol. Well in a setup like that you typically arn’t clipping a digital signal, you are clipping an analog signal. Clipping an analog signal isn’t as harsh as clipping a digital signal
I’m not raising the gain of a file, I’m raising the gain of a very narrow frequency band very slightly.
You’re telling me if I use the eq settings I have posted above I should be able to measure or otherwise detect distortion simply because I’m above 0db on a couple bands?
The eq done via the DSP is done digitally, I’m not using an analog eq.
I’m just saying that if you have foobar on full volume and you have a song that hits 0db (not too uncommon), you will clip after it leaves the eq. It’s not going to be massive or anything but it can be noticeable
I can’t speak to foobar, don’t use it.
I should say any audio player with a song that peaks at 0db
Just curious could you give an example? While I don’t doubt you are using a digital eq, I don’t know if it would be actually adjusting the digital signal where it could clip
What the hell else is it adjusting then? Lol.
I use a Helix DSP Pro, it is a digital eq. I can MAKE it clip, absolutely. But 2db is never gonna do it. Just like I don’t believe eq apo on windows is ever gonna clip with a 2db bump, at least with my set up.
That’s because that unit is a 64 bit and 32 bit floating point unit which essentially negates the effects of clipping with small bumps above 0db. APO eq does not have the capability to do this, and will hard clip at above 0db.