“Equalization” – Now There’s A Loaded Word

If you do your sound work, whatever it is, as an expression of a set of fundamental beliefs, operating outside of a business or emotional (as in musical) model, you will not hit the mark as often as the technological relativists, who say screw it and grab an equalizer to fix the mess, or perhaps, defeat every equalizer to fix a different mess.

For example, my main teaching rig consists of eight stacks run in various configurations, depending on what’s happening any given day. Each stack has a double 18-in and a three-way (15”/6.5”/1”). There’s huge power and a network of nine XTA’s behind the thing.

It normally runs with 24 dB/octave Linkwitz/Riley slopes, and a ton of parametric in both the PEQ and driver sends. Audiophiles would be horrified. Yet I can stand in front of any of the stacks with an open mic and yank it up to 105 dB or so and there will be no feedback. That’s important if you are in a live sound classroom with a lot of guest musicians and open mics.

The rig sounds OK in these circumstances, but if we indulge in a little audio absolutism, we can make it sound better, with the caveat that the system will go into instant feedback in the “pure sound” mode with an open mic. In the “pure sound,” or audiophile absolutist mode, there is also a definite limit on sound pressure levels, as to get the rig to sound this good we have to go to second order Bessel slopes and take the high pass down to 13 Hz from 28 Hz.

And, of course, no equalization in this mode, period.

When we do this, the rig approaches audiophile clarity, extension and transparency. If we take it louder than 90 dB or so, the drivers start to distort, but up to that point it sounds amazing. Unfortunately, the experience in this mode is limited to playback from disc or file.

Let’s analyze goals then – in this instance, if the goal is super sound quality, we can’t have any EQ. If the goal is open mic stability and high SPL, we need massive EQ. Neither way is “right” – the situation will define which one solves the particular problem.

For the audio pragmatist/relativist, EQ nominally relates to two goal situations – the “tone control” make it sound “better” issue, and the “no feedback” issue. There is an inherent conflict between these goals – if you hack too much in the EQ domain for feedback suppression, it will sound hollow or weird or something. Excessive concern with tonal purity will result in unacceptable gain before feedback with open mics, and probably get you fired. The trick is to strike a balance between the two.

Such a balance cannot be measured (you knew that one was coming – ha ha), of course. The operator has to have those files onboard, based on show experience and a hell of a lot of listening to high-resolution playback systems and live acoustic events. Listening to MP3’s on a laptop with a set of $50 headphones isn’t going to get it. I spend too much time and money on my main home rig, and it seems to change rather often, which is typical for most audiophiles.

This is not the place for product recommendations for optimum home listening, as that solution exists only as a moving target. There are some things out there, at various price points that deliver the necessary, as the Brits would say. Maybe, if it’s clearly understood that I’m nobody’s sales slave anymore, I can outline a few of these systems for those in the market for same, in an upcoming article.

What I will do now is provide a little generic EQ advice to aid and abet the continued employment of the budding live sound operator. That’s impossible, some will say – there is no such thing as generic EQ – there are too many variables. True – rooms and systems and event types are all over the place. But we do have some live sound situational consistency: the nearfield open mic situation – monitor world.