How I Used a Parametric EQ For Partial Hearing Loss

Thanks @Jacob. This is what I have just discovered.

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Should be the same end result, your computer is now your converter ( no cute little light ) but volume won’t jump around. Let’s listen to what Jacob says he’s super sharp on this stuff

You can always upsample in Audirvana. Then you can experiment a bit and maybe get close to the sound upsampling of MQA.

I like beautiful recordings and the possibility to apply digital corrections. MQA does not guarantee good recordings but does limit me in corrections.
:wink:It may be obvious. i’m not a fan :zipper_mouth_face:

And whether analog or digital is better also depends on the quality of the analog and digital EQ.

But a graphic analog EQ is very unsuitable for such a correction. Every band you move causes some phase shifts. And if I remember correctly, the problems with boosting are greater than with decreasing gain.

A nice parametric analog EQ can work many times better, but are much more expensive.

A digital EQ is then much more interesting. And the Pro-Q3 is a very nice one to start with. But there are plenty of others that can do it just fine, depending on what your wishes are.

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Thank @Jacob The few minutes spent with it so far seems equal, if not better. A few more tweaks to Pro-Q3 to get it all the way dialed in and I am sure the results should be better.

This may take a while though, as my computer is not at my listening position. :upside_down_face:

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I use Remote Desktop (VNC) on MacBook, iPhone or IPad to be able to control from the listening position.

But if you don’t care too much about full MQA rendering then I’m pretty sure you’ll get a better result by removing the analog EQ completely and then running the EQ in Audirvana.

Can’t help you on that, i don’t stream or use MQA format…
will never buy that format for sure… and i don’t buy anything now :slight_smile:

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I am now almost to the point of giving up and going to the old way.

I had finally gotten everything working with the parametric EQ mentioned above. I listened to a Qobuz album native 24/96, a Tidal album MQA 24/192, playback at 24/88 being as I needed to disable the MQA in the DAC for the EQ to work. I then listened to a Qobuz 24/192, all but the last track. I paused it at the start of the last track, as I had to do something. When I came back, nothing will play without the major distortion I mentioned above.

I closed the app, restarted it and still the same. I then logged out and then back in and still the same problem. I have not tried restarting the computer.

I am not sure what to do.

Update:
I restarted the computer and all seems well now. I am not sure what was up with that.

I will continue testing when time permits.

When I’m done tuning, I turn off the real-time processing. In my experience that is more stable.

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Ahhhh. I will have to give that a try. I wasn’t sure if real time processing turned off would disable the plugin. Obviously, going on your suggestion, it will continue working, but at the last setting.

That would be perfect anyway, because once setup there is a set it and forget it scenario. More often than not, no other adjustments would be needed.

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But the dancing vu meters are always cool

Yes they are!

If I understand correctly:

In realtime mode, the original file is loaded and the processing is applied in realtime during playback.

In offline mode, the processing is already applied when the file is loaded. The playback itself will require little CPU power.

Digital EQ gain adjustments add bits (amplitude)… Any plug-in pre-processing will add bits to the digital stream… It is important to manage the volume output gain settings of the plug-in, the sample-rate converter, and system output-gain of Audirvana Studio… If the final output stream being sent to the DAC is too “hot”, overloading the input stage of your interface, the signal will sound “clipped” (distortion of the DAC due to bit-level overloading that is being truncated) … Even without sample-rate conversion processing you may add enough digital-gain to overload the DAC input stage…

That applies to any form of processing. In that respect it is a pity that Audirvana does have the ability to apply processing, but has no clip indication.

In the context of plug-ins being inserted into the signal processing chain, expect to have some increase in the bit-density, when activeThis increase in bit-density must be accounted for in concert with any subsequent sample-rate conversion and volume increases applied to the source-file, bit-stream being presented to the DAC, in-order to avoid clipping the input stage of the DAC… More plug-ins, produce more bit-density that must be accounted for… This clipping artifact noise is clearly audible, however it may be misinterpreted as being produced elsewhere in the signal chain…The application of digital interpolation, etc, as applied in Audirvana Studio, is a tricky business to get filter settings set optimally for a given DAC system architecture, which, when applied carelessly, can induce artifacts like pre-ringing, etc, that can be construed as distortions.

So far so good. I have several test setups with the new digital parametric EQ.

  • 1 with the mid bass and lower, lowered 3.8db or so.
  • 2 selected mid to upper frequencies boosted varying from 2.5-3.5db gain
  • 3 one curve ramped up in the mid highs and flat from the peak there after all the way to the right

I am leaning toward the 3rd setup. It seems to sound the best so far.

All the adjustments have the main gain for all cut back to an amount that would equal slighly less than the original file without EQ.

This is all new to me and I hope my explanation makes sense.

A few days in, the sound is cleaner than my analog EQ I was using.

In concert with a comprehensive hearing analysis by a qualified professional, you may find this reference material presented in this WikiAudio article, beneficial in approaching your preferred EQ settings:

Quite an interesting read. Before reading this, I would have never guessed volume of different tone/frequencies are not all perceived at the same volume level.

…and yes, I should also see a hearing professional. It has been about 12-14 years ago I had a preliminary hearing test at Costco.