The equalizer you don't know you have

kenjit: "Which is why so many audiophiles are never happy with their speakers. The EQ that is built in, has been tuned to the designers ears rather than your ears.
If you want a pair of trousers that fits you, who should try it on to see if it fits? The person in the store, or you?"

     Good point, kenjit! I was having the salesperson try out the fit on my prospective trousers for years before I figured that one out.
     I believe you’re also right about this approach applying well to our main speaker choices because speaker selection is so subjective and personal. It’s sort of a "I’ll know the right pair of speakers for me when I hear them" kind of deal when searching for the ones to actually purchase and live with for awhile. It’s likely a confluence of speaker design and sound quality characteristics that determine our choices, including the overall sonic attributes of the EQ settings chosen by the speaker designers via their crossover networks.
     Ultimately however, we all know we make our decisions on which pair of main speakers to purchase based on the total package and total sound; how closely does our subjective perception of how they sound compare to our subjective perception of how we’d like them to sound? Let’s throw out that pesky subjective variable factor of price at the moment for clarity and simplicity’s sake.
     While I agree with Erik that the crossover networks on any speakers function as hidden critical EQs on the resultant sound, I suggest we put them in perspective by considering them only one of the several ingredients that determine the overall sound of a speaker. They are an important ingredient in the overall sonic taste or flavor of a speaker but, I believe many of us would agree, there are also several other important ingredient worthy of discussion
     I wanted to add that I appreciate Erik’s efforts in playing the role of an informal facilitator on this forum by consistently being the original poster of many threads that are creative, concern a wide variety of interesting as well as relevant audio topics which are typically thought provoking and that usually elicit many equally interesting, entertaining and informative responses.

Thank you, Erik,
Tim

Loudspeaker designer's don't "tune speakers to their ears." Geez, will ya just watch the Tech Talk Tuesday videos? And then read the writings of Siegfried Linkwitz. You might learn how speakers are REALLY designed, and then shut the Hell up.

I'm a big believer in measurements and tools in speaker design. Of course I believe in science and engineering and that there are giants of both who have lots to say about what makes a great speaker.


It's also true though that the recording engineers are making judgement calls as to what we want to hear, and what gear we use to listen to it. This has always been true. There is no commonly accepted baseline of how a neutral speaker should behave. I mean, I use the B&K curve as a reference, but truth be told not many others do.


In this sense, the motion picture industry had a much better standard in the work of THX. Not only did they specify frequency response curves, reference volume levels but even crossovers and auditorium acoustics!


That's light years more standardized than we have in the music industry.

So what should we do? In my opinion, buy the speakers we like the most and use tone controls when needed.  Sit back and enjoy what makes you happy.

Have my awesome EQ, the Onkyo EQ-540 integra, she is a great EQ!
 It gets some use on specifics CDs and albums.

i just like the green lights. :)

I just want to point out that EQ (and other signal processing) takes place in many places along the recording process as well as in playback systems.

As Erik pointed out most speakers systems have some sort of EQ by necessity. All speaker drivers and speaker systems have compromises. When a speaker designer is tasked to design a pair of speakers that will be sold through retail stores that will retail for $2K they must cost no more than $500~$600 to manufacture including overhead, packaging and labor for the company to stay in business. Not all speaker manufacturers have the same resources. Five different speaker manufacturers will each have their own way to meet that price point as well as having their own preferences. So each company will build a $2K speaker that sound different from their competitor's $2K speaker. Also, it is very difficult to accurately predict what people want in a speaker so designer do what they think is best.

Stated in a previous post:
" Part of that explanation is why an outboard electronic crossover, while very useful for some applications, can provide only "textbook" filters, NOT compensation filters for drivers needing help."

With all due respect that statement is not accurate. Frequency contouring or EQ can and often is designed into analog electronic crossovers. They are usually designed for a specific speaker. For example we designed an analog electronic crossover for one of our two way OB speaker systems. Along with performing the crossover functions the unit is used for contouring the upper mid-range and also adds bass boost required for OB woofers. More than "textbook" filters are possible.

"Outboard electronic crossover" is a broad term. I believe the poster was describing analog electronic crossovers. DSP crossovers fit the description too.

There is truth in saying that just substituting off-the-shelf analog electronic crossovers for the factory passive crossovers that have driver and cabinet compensating circuits and other EQ could have very negative sonic consequences.