Mike Deming said he designed the unit to be this way. Namely EQ In has some favorable effect even with the dials on flat. I asked because of the above observations. Hence with this unit true transparency is unnecessary.
Equalizer in a Hi Fi system
Just curious to hear everyone’s opinions on using an equalizer in a high end hi fi system. Was at work tonight and killing time and came across a Schitt Loki max $1500 Equalizer with some very good reviews. What are some of the pros / Benefits and cons in using one. Just curious. BTW. I’m talking about a top of the line. Hi end equalizer. Mostly to calm some high frequencies and some bad recordings.
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Analog Equalization causes havoc with image generation. This is why serious audiophiles steered away from toner controls and EQ in the past. Any major errors in amplitude were controlled at least in part by acoustic treatments. Fine control over amplitude is a huge advantage, much finer than any analog method can muster, literally 1 Hz at a time. This can now be done in the digital realm without any added distortion of any type. Certain digital preamps have this capability allowing you to create target curves. I'm sure there are also plug ins that allow you to do this. This is the path to a SOTA system in most rooms. The other path requires incredible luck. |
@mirolab , have you done any direct comparisons between any pro hardware EQ and the Lokius or Loki Max? |
Digital EQ is flat and 2 dimensional compared to high end analog EQ. I’ve directly compared modest curves on Roon and Auralic digital EQ as well as Mojo2 104 bit “lossless” UHD EQ against Charter Oak. The CO beats all 3 easily in terms of all hi fi qualities/ descriptors including image specificity. Particularly in the realm of high frequencies. So I don’t agree that digital is better in terms of image specificity. Minimal phase shift exists with the higher end analog solutions and they just sound way better. At least mastering and home playback. But hey, don’t take my word for it. Go read what audio engineers have to say on forums like Gearspace |
I think this is part of the legendary use of EQ which may not apply today. 31 bands of cheap parts excessively used introduced so much phase shift and noise you can forget about not just imaging but dynamic range as well. Tone controls and small number of parametric bands can be heavenly though. The use of a miniDSP in line with subwoofers can be a lot closer to perfect than not. |
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