tuning 420eq

[gride]

i have always followed the mantra of only cutting, and not boosting. is that a wrong philosophy to follow?

[EarmarkMarine]

Mostly yes. If you have a peak in the response then cutting 3 dB of power will absolutlely cut 3 dB of acoustic output. Easy enough to a large degree. But with a graphic EQ you can never pinpoint the center frequency or emulate the 'Q'/slope/bandwidth of the problem or dislike. So any correction in the form of a cut may intentionally fall just a little shy. Your good ear (a little experience) will tell you when you have gone too far and introduced new problem issues in trying to correct the original issue.
Dips in the response are much harder to correct when the cause is phasing or a speaker limitation or a product of the environment. You can easily pump a 12 dB boost into correcting a 3 dB dip and still never get there. Why? Because there was a real issue in trying to produce that bandwidth to begin with and any correction will be horribly inefficient. The fix will become a black hole, sapping your system of its dynamic range, generating distortion and creating new response and phasing conflicts outside of the area you intend to correct. So for the most part, a dip as a result of poor system tuning, natural cancellations, speaker limitations, or phasing cannot be corrected. Even with the most sophisticated EQs, rarely is the flatest response the best sounding. In a perfect world it would be but the above explains why this is almost never the case.
In other cases, you just want to be the sound engineer of your own boat and sound system. You want to re-shape the sound a bit as a matter of preference but not necessarily to correct an inherent flaw. In this scenario, the collective boosts and cuts should be fairly equal so that you balance out to zero. A combination of a modest boost and cut is preferrable to a harsh boost or harsh cut. The end response is likely to be smoother and your ear usually objects to any abrupt response change. Also, with any change in amplitude you have absolutely introduced a change in the phase rotation, with the inverse also being true. Phase and amplitude are inseparable. So a modest boost/cut combination better manages the phase response and frequency response.

David

[ers906]

Just want to say thank you David for continually posting on Planet Nautique. Although I rarely understand what you are saying (apparently my brain is not wired for understanding audio components, but I can figure out biologic systems) I do appreciate the time you take to help the members here.

[EarmarkMarine]

Just want to say thank you David for continually posting on Planet Nautique. Although I rarely understand what you are saying (apparently my brain is not wired for understanding audio components, but I can figure out biologic systems) I do appreciate the time you take to help the members here.

And that's okay because my arms will cross, my lids will get heavy, and my eyes will glaze over the moment the conversation turns to biologic....or any number of other subjects for which I know nothing about. In fact, that could apply to any other subject other than audio.

David