Collected Audio EQ settings in one post

[M3JetPilot]

I've been having fun pushing the HK audio system to the max. I know a custom system could far exceed the stock speakers but with a few steps you can get some decent sound. This is what I did to get the best sound possible, along with various EQ settings from various posts. In the below settings fader and balance are all even to start. I'll post more as I find them. If you have any to add please post your settings.

The steps I took are:

1. Use the highest quality audio as possible. Spotify, YouTube Music and Pandora, while convenient, offer some of the lowest audio quality. The difference is not small. Low end, spatial clarity and sound stage all suffer with low bit rates.

2. The best audio quality I've achieved so far are Tidal streaming through a Dragonfly Red (if you have good cell service), FLAC or similar type files on a USB and CDs. Bluetooth audio, low quality streaming and non-HD radio suffer in quality.

3. The EQ settings that works best for me are:

Logic 7 ON
Bass flat
Treble +1
100 +7
200 -6
500 -4
1k +5
2k -4
5k +2
10k -1

These settings are not original to me. Much thanks to satinghostrider for posting this a few years ago.

Here are some others to try:

Logic 7 OFF EQ settings are:
Bass +2
Treble +1
100hz +4
200hz -2
500hz -4
1khz +5
2khz -5
5khz +3
10khz -1

Logic 7 ON EQ settings are:
Bass flat
Treble +1
100 +7
200 -6
500 -4
1k +5
2k -4
5k +2
10k -1

Logic 7 ON
Bass +2
Treble +4
100 +2
200 -3
500 -5
1k -4
2k -2
5k +2
10k +3

Logic 7 ON

Treble -8 from center
Bass -3 from center
EQ 100HZ +5 from center
200 +4
500 +3
1KHZ +2
2 +4
5 +3
10 +4

Treble: 0
Bass: +1
L7: on
EQ:
100HZ: +6
200HZ: +4
500HZ: +1
1kHZ: +4
2kHZ: +6
5kHZ: +5
10kHZ: +3

Treble: 0
Bass: +2
L7: off
EQ:
100HZ: +5
200HZ: +1
500HZ: -2
1kHZ: -4
2kHZ: -4
5kHZ: 0
10kHZ: -1

Treble: +5
Bass: +4
L7: on
EQ:
100HZ: +5
200HZ: +3
500HZ: +2
1kHZ: -1
2kHZ: +2
5kHZ: +4
10kHZ: +6

Treble: +6
Bass: +4
L7: on
EQ:
100HZ: +5
200HZ: +3
500HZ: +1
1kHZ: -1
2kHZ: +2
5kHZ: +5
10kHZ: +7

Treble: +3
Bass: +1
L7: on
EQ:
100HZ: -6
200HZ: -5
500HZ: -4
1kHZ: -3
2kHZ: -3
5kHZ: -2
10kHZ: 0

Treble: +5
Bass: +4
L7: off
EQ:
100Hz +4
200Hz +7
500Hz +0
1Khz +4
2Khz +5
5Khz +5
10Khz +5

Treble: +1
Bass: +3
L7: on
EQ:
100Hz +5
200Hz +2
500Hz +0
1Khz +4
2Khz +3
5Khz +2
10Khz +1

Bass, Treble, Fader, Balance all centered, logic 7 turned ON

EQ setting
100hz -3
200hz -1
500hz +2
1khz +1
2khz flat
5khz +2
10khz +3

Bass, Treble, Fader, Balance all centered, logic 7 turned OFF

EQ setting
100hz -3
200hz -1
500hz +2
1khz +1
2khz flat
5khz +2
10khz +2

Bass, Treble, Balance all centered, Fader to the front and logic 7 turned OFF

EQ setting
100hz -4
200hz flat
500hz -2
1khz +2
2khz +1
5khz +1
10khz +2

Absolute flattest I could get - Bass -6 or 7 (I can't tell from the pic but I remember its four bars from the left showing), Treble center, balance center, fader front, logic 7 OFF

EQ setting
100hz +3
200hz -4
500hz -1
1khz +2
2khz -2
5khz flat
10khz -1

Treble +2
Bass +0
Logic 7 On
100 +3
200 +2
500 +0
1 +0
2 +1
5 +2
10 +3


Links to the original posts:
Post 1
Post 2

Have fun experimenting!

[M3JetPilot]

To 11!

[gunsmoker]

Why would you have bass and treble on at the same time as the EQ is beyond me. It also depends a lot on the music you listen to. I listen to hard and heavy rock mostly and such high boost of the high bands causes distortion. It is fine with R&B or rap.

[M3JetPilot]

Originally Posted by gunsmoker

Why would you have bass and treble on at the same time as the EQ is beyond me. It also depends a lot on the music you listen to. I listen to hard and heavy rock mostly and such high boost of the high bands causes distortion. It is fine with R&B or rap.

Great point. I have no idea what makes the most sense from a sound engineer's perspective but I know what sounds good to me. The settings are all over the place but it's fun to see what other settings people are using. I was actually surprised at what I could get out of this system. When I first got my M all settings were flat, the HD radio was off, and Bluetooth from my phone was all I had. It really can be improved greatly with a little bit of effort. What settings do you use?

[knightarmor]

Logic 7 off always.
I ended up doing the Eton speakers upgrade minus the subs which are still HK. also went back and added some Dynamat around the speaker mounting areas. When I'm really into the sound quality of a track I run it off USB in RAW 16bit. I've got about 100Gigs of music at the moment.

I used the following artists to tune/set the EQ.

Supertramp
Joe Satriani
Nathan Furst
Vangelis
Dune Soundtrack (Toto)
Pet Shop Boys
Bass Mekanik (1 and 2)
FM Attack
Billy Joel
Batman V Superman soundtrack
Kylie Minogue

I also come from a time when most the systems I built back in the day had most of the components made in the USA.

[N44RP]

Could you list a genre/genres of music that pair well with each of those settings?

[gunsmoker]

Look at that - another Satriani fan!
I use only two tracks for adjusting EQs for music listening (home theater calibration takes care of the movies since those a based on a standard and not Joe-the-Sound-Engineer's rule of thumb). They are from Jesse Cook's Free Fall album. If you are not familiar with his work, this is known as world-music. It's basically instrumentals with an acoustic guitar, bass, and drums. His music has a wide dynamic range and what I do is tune the lowest band so the sub is just about to distort and the highest band so that the cymbals are just about to sound distorted and then I do a smooth curve for the bands in the middle so that the one band in the middle is at 0. I keep the bass/treble knobs flat and use only the EQ in the car. Playing with the bass/treble at the same time would add two other cut-off frequencies and skew the EQ frequencies and you won't have a visual feedback of the inflections/distortions you have created. If I don't have an EQ and just bass/treble as in most home theaters, I use those two knobs after the HT calibration to bring the music listening experience where it needs to be.
These are the tracks I use:
- Jesse Cook, album Free Fall, track Incantation for the bass:

The woofer comes in very strong around the 48s - make sure that does not distort.
- Jesse Cook, album Free Fall, track Swicthback for the treble:

Make sure the high frequencies (maracas?) are not distorted in the real beginning of the track.
- Jesse Cook, album Free Fall, track Free Fall for final check after you do a smiley with the middle bands:

Obviously, get these tracks from a quality source. These are the best sound engineering I have seen in my decades of enjoying various styles of music.

Sometimes I'm tempted to use Logic 7 and it's good for epic music if you follow Ivan Torrent, but the moment I put hard/heavy/metal on, the sound gets muddled. Try Ivan's One of Us if you haven't heard that - it's incredible:

[N44RP]

Man, I enjoyed listening to those. Thank you

[knightarmor]

Originally Posted by gunsmoker

Look at that - another Satriani fan!
I use only two tracks for adjusting EQs for music listening (home theater calibration takes care of the movies since those a based on a standard and not Joe-the-Sound-Engineer's rule of thumb). They are from Jesse Cook's Free Fall album. If you are not familiar with his work, this is known as world-music. It's basically instrumentals with an acoustic guitar, bass, and drums. His music has a wide dynamic range and what I do is tune the lowest band so the sub is just about to distort and the highest band so that the cymbals are just about to sound distorted and then I do a smooth curve for the bands in the middle so that the one band in the middle is at 0. I keep the bass/treble knobs flat and use only the EQ in the car. Playing with the bass/treble at the same time would add two other cut-off frequencies and skew the EQ frequencies and you won't have a visual feedback of the inflections/distortions you have created. If I don't have an EQ and just bass/treble as in most home theaters, I use those two knobs after the HT calibration to bring the music listening experience where it needs to be.
These are the tracks I use:
- Jesse Cook, album Free Fall, track Incantation for the bass:

The woofer comes in very strong around the 48s - make sure that does not distort.
- Jesse Cook, album Free Fall, track Swicthback for the treble:

Make sure the high frequencies (maracas?) are not distorted in the real beginning of the track.
- Jesse Cook, album Free Fall, track Free Fall for final check after you do a smiley with the middle bands:

Obviously, get these tracks from a quality source. These are the best sound engineering I have seen in my decades of enjoying various styles of music.

Sometimes I'm tempted to use Logic 7 and it's good for epic music if you follow Ivan Torrent, but the moment I put hard/heavy/metal on, the sound gets muddled. Try Ivan's One of Us if you haven't heard that - it's incredible:

Oh yeah Satriani fan since the mid 90's (or was it 80's, has it been that long?!?!?!). For me it started with the Sony commercial, any Satriani fan knows what I'm talking about. Recently picked up a few CD's of his I didn't have and can't believe I missed Unstoppable Momentum. Currently my favorite album to jam to.

I amazingly forgot to include Yanni's Tribute album in my setup list. Best Live album ever .

I have heard Jesse Cook
First time hearing Ivan Torrent

[gunsmoker]

Yeah, you listen to your favorite music for 1-2 decades and then you get bored and start looking for new stuff. I was so happy when I discovered Jesse Cook 10+ years go. I saw him in concert in Boston once. Then I played this incredible Horizon Zero Dawn game on PS4 and the music got me looking up Julie Elven and that's how I found Ivan Torrent. I was so happy to discover him a few years back, but he has not had new stuff in the last few years. In the meantime - back to old shreds - Satriani, Malmsteen, Symphony X, that type of stuff and singing Ariana Grande with the kids in the car.

[gunsmoker]

I always go to see Satriani in concert when he visits Boston. For such a long career, it's been amazing how the last few albums are so good. I had him written off around the Engines of Creation and then we get these great albums - What happens next, Shapeshifting, Shockwave Supernova, Unstoppable Momentum.

I did see Yanni in concert in Boston too, but the venue was too small for such epic music. I have a blue-ray I enjoy more.

[gunsmoker]

The thing with the HK system in our cars is that it does not have a loudness mode like a home theater or a stereo amp. If you are not familiar, this is an EQ compensation when the volume is changing, basically boosting the highs and lows when the volume is decreased. So in our case you adjust the bass/treble or EQ at some volume level and then when you turn the volume down, the sound becomes meh! and when you crank it up, the sound becomes ugh! My EQ is adjusted at 50% volume level and that's why it may seem very conservative, but that's my crank-up/feel-great level. Here are my settings:
- bass/treble: 0
- EQ from top down: +2, +1, +1, 0, 0, +1, +2
- fader: 1 to the rear
- Logic 7: off

[M3JetPilot]

Originally Posted by N44RP

Could you list a genre/genres of music that pair well with each of those settings?

As I experiment with each setting I'll add a recommended genre. Thanks for the idea.

[M3JetPilot]

Originally Posted by gunsmoker

The thing with the HK system in our cars is that it does not have a loudness mode like a home theater or a stereo amp. If you are not familiar, this is an EQ compensation when the volume is changing, basically boosting the highs and lows when the volume is decreased. So in our case you adjust the bass/treble or EQ at some volume level and then when you turn the volume down, the sound becomes meh! and when you crank it up, the sound becomes ugh! My EQ is adjusted at 50% volume level and that's why it may seem very conservative, but that's my crank-up/feel-great level. Here are my settings:
- bass/treble: 0
- EQ from top down: +2, +1, +1, 0, 0, +1, +2
- fader: 1 to the rear
- Logic 7: off

That's another good point about a loudness setting and I do hear that weakness in the system. I have B&W towers and center at home, Denon receiver and a D-Sonic M3a-2800 amp and it does not have this drawback. Good idea to adjust at 50% volume. I'm going to try this. Thanks for sharing.

[hellokitty]

Originally Posted by knightarmor

Logic 7 off always.
I ended up doing the Eton speakers upgrade minus the subs which are still HK. also went back and added some Dynamat around the speaker mounting areas. When I'm really into the sound quality of a track I run it off USB in RAW 16bit. I've got about 100Gigs of music at the moment.

I used the following artists to tune/set the EQ.

Supertramp
Joe Satriani
Nathan Furst
Vangelis
Dune Soundtrack (Toto)
Pet Shop Boys
Bass Mekanik (1 and 2)
FM Attack
Billy Joel
Batman V Superman soundtrack
Kylie Minogue

I also come from a time when most the systems I built back in the day had most of the components made in the USA.

Where did you buy Eton? I can't find them anywhere in the USA.

[hellokitty]

Originally Posted by M3JetPilot

That's another good point about a loudness setting and I do hear that weakness in the system. I have B&W towers and center at home, Denon receiver and a D-Sonic M3a-2800 amp and it does not have this drawback. Good idea to adjust at 50% volume. I'm going to try this. Thanks for sharing.

Sorry for the newbie question but what does a dragon fly red do and how does it incorporate into the car and phone?

[knightarmor]

Originally Posted by hellokitty

Where did you buy Eton? I can't find them anywhere in the USA.

eBay, direct from Germany.