can I eq my system to be flat?

[TiEREX]

I have a surround sound system here, 5.1. All klipsch, so high quality stuff. If I were to configure it in 2.1, would there be any way to eq it for a more flat response? I don't currently have any monitors, been mixing with a pair of sennheiser hd565's. the headphones don't really give me an adequate reflection of my subbass, as they cut around 40hz. Wat do guys?

[daft cunt]

can I eq my system to be flat?

No.

the headphones don't really give me an adequate reflection of my subbass, as they cut around 40hz. Wat do guys?

Most monitors will cut around 40 Hz as well.

Your options :
a) get a monitors + sub combo
b) get a pair of headphones with a decent bass response (Beyer's DT 770 Pro are doing a good job at it)
c) cope with it

[mikeyp]

can I eq my system to be flat?

No.

why not? i've always wondered the same thing. not trying to say you can but what's your explanation

[sunny_b_uk]

i remember trying something about 5 years ago.. basically my friend had a perfect set up, i wanted to match the response so i installed a EQ program on my laptop's desktop to try and see if i could get my crap sony earphones sounding the same (which my earphones boasted a full 20Hz-20Khz response). it seemed like it worked at first but TBH no.. all headphones and speakers have a different frequency response to each other so the only thing i managed to get sounding the same was the reference song that i had on repeat on both my friends computer and my laptop.
as soon as i started playing other songs it felt like i just wasted all my time, because i did

[e-motion]

I think there are tools for that (although they're mostly used to flat out response in rooms with isolation problems). It used a sine wave sweep across the whole spectrum, played from your speakers and recorded by a microphone, and then used spectrum analysis to flat it out. Problem is, you'll probably need a microphone more expensive than your sound system and your room will have problems too so you'll end up over-eqing.

[macc]

Why wouldn't the speakers be flat if you configure it as 2.1?

Forgetting the room for a minute, of course.

[Insahn]

You can pay to get an expensive mic/room correction EQ software such as the one that IKMultimedia makes, but when setting that up you are putting the microphone in a fixed location (the sweet spot) and the software helps you EQ from that point. But what if you move your head more than a couple of inches forward or back out of your equidistant triangle or "sweet spot"? The frequency response will go out of alignment again due to the different room modes and resonances present. It's better to just build some DIY bass traps or get used to using headphones in concert with your monitors rather than bang your head against the wall trying to EQ for the room's flaws. Moreover, room resonances ring on in time before they die out and this is something you can't really correct at all with EQ.

[jrisreal]

I'm sure it's possible...won't be as good as the real thing but in theory if you play a white noise tone through your setup and record it with a mic where your head would be, then go back with an eq/spectrum analyzer and find where you need to boost/reduce...you could probably get a close-to-flat response.

[VirtualMark]

if you did apply any eq to the output of your system, you'd need to make sure it doesn't affect your master bus. personally i wouldn't bother, if you're producing on a surround system then its not been designed for production. its not just about a flat frequency response, monitors also have better transients and clarity.

the best thing you can do is to either buy monitors, or check your tunes on headphones, other systems and compare with other producers tunes. also try using a spectrum analyzer to see where your levels are peaking.

[Electric_Head]

When you play the track on any other system, your eq adjustments will become horribly apparent.

[macc]

Are we eqing to correct the speakers or the room?

Both are a complete nightmare, but I'm still interested what the OP is looking for...

[Electric_Head]

I think he wants to eq his speaker setup to produce a more neutral sound, in other words - emulate monitor response

[blinx]

can I eq my system to be flat? YES TURN IT OFF now you have an even response across all frequencies, sure its NO resposne but its as flat as you will get.

Real answer... NO. unless it has a FLAT EQ setting. but then your still at the mercy of the freq response of that HIFI system which is still NOT FLAT.

I feel like to get spearkes to be flat you would have to be in a room that adds 0 noise/reflection before you could even attempt to tune a speaker. THen you would have to play tones from 20hz to 20khz and adjust accordingly. atleast thats how i see it happening in my brain.

your best bet is to just use the 5.1 as a reference system and not a monitoring system.

NOw i know in live PA/Sound Reinforcement, you will "ring out" a room using your eqs to eliminate spikes caused by the room and reflection of the speakers in that room.

[macc]

What a thoroughly unhelpful post.

[komanderkin]

i'm pretty sure you can't really eq your sound system to a perfectly flat response (and there wouldn't be much use for such a system either because no speaker in the world is perfectly flat). the main reason i think so is because what you hear through the speaker is not affected only by the speaker's frequency response, but a whole shabang of other stuff like your room size, acoustics, speaker positioning and so on. i know this because a friend of mine has the same monitors as me (M-Audio BX5a) and when we mix at his place it's a whole different deal - mostly the higher frequencies which are much quiter in his room.

anyway, even in your own room, the sound changes as you move around the speakers - try moving a few steps to the left as you're listening to a tune and parts of the mix will sound completely different. now imagine what happens if you set-up an eq to flatten the response right in front of the speakers. what happens if you move a few steps to the side in this case? complete mess, that's what happens.



i try to rely on comparing my mixes to released tracks as i work and also making short breaks from time to time and then listening to a released track first to recalibrate my ears before returning to my own mix.

[Today]

careful with boosts at 4k while mixing in headphones.. i just read that headphones usually have a notch cut out at 4k due to ear sensitivity. So you may be boosting it when you don't need to and end up with a sharp tone on normal playback speakers.

This could be bollox i just read it the other day so u might wanna watch the 4k area if mixing in cans.