Tuning equalizer properly

If you want to improve the sound of your car audio system but you have not installed an advanced signal processor. Do not worry about anything, you can still get a great sound by tuning up your equalizers properly. Equalizer determine what you hear and how loud you hear it. The most common used EQ is the Graphic Equalizer. Car stereo has variety of equalizers which are used to tune the sound quality of the music. Equalizers are bands of frequencies which can be adjusted according to you. Generally in aftermarket stereo, there are are around 13 to 16 band equalizers which are more than enough for a good listening experience. The equalizer controls three main settings in a stereo which is bass, mid and highs. Sometimes equalizers plays a very important role in getting a distortion free sound as well. In case you are over tuning your equalizers or not tuned properly, it can introduce distortion at high volume.

The equalizer has bands of frequencies which can be boosted or reduced according to the music. In a touch screen stereo the frequencies are written at the bottom of the equalizer which tells what particular frequency you are tuning. If you set your equalizer to push more bass frequency it can harm your speaker performance. Always remember that crossovers and equalizer is completely different things. DSP has a wide variety of equalizers which has almost more than 30 bands which can help you to fine tune your sound quality, that is why this is a very good device if you have a stock radio in the car. The stock radio have a curve of equalizer from the factory which is done to make the stock speaker sound good. The stock radio equalizers will not sound flat even if they are set to flat setting because of the sound curve which factory pre installed to it. Tuning the equalizer will tune overall system sound not only one speaker. A DSP can do individual equalizer settings to every speaker, that is why it is a great device for tuning the sound system. Before tuning anything in the stereo, make sure you set all sound settings to zero and equalizers to flat as this will help you to tune your system before the distortion point. Always remember that the sound you are getting is according to your speakers and equipments capability only, you will not get a very big difference in sound after setting your equalizer.

The equalizer has certain important things which needs to be explained: 25Hz to 80Hz is the Sub Bass frequencies which controls bass. Tuning this will give you bass punch from the subwoofer. 90Hz to 250Hz control Bass Frequencies. This controls bass of the speakers or mid bass of component speakers.250Hz to 800Hz is the Low mid Frequencies. This will enhance the vocal bass response. 800Hz to 2.5K Hz is the Mid range Frequencies. This controls the vocals of the music. 2.5K Hz to 4K Hz is the Upper Mid Frequencies. This will enhance the sharpness of the vocals. 4K Hz to 16K Hz is the High Frequencies. This frequencies will completely make the music more crisp. This will make the sound more brighter. This is the Treble option which is labelled as Brilliance in some radio.

A part from this every equalizer has a labelling on the left side or right side, written as 0 , -12 , -6 , +6 , +12. What does that mean? This is actually the decibel points at which the sound is been tuned. All the equalizers set at 0 decibels are treated to be a flat sound. It is just like the crossover points which sets the slope of the speaker or subwoofer. The human ears can hear frequencies from 20Hz to 20000Hz and the ears can hear mid frequencies better than the frequencies at the extreme ends. So there is no need to boost mid range frequencies at the equalizers if you want to make a proportionate sound for the music. If you want a bright and vivid output from your audio system you can boost the extreme end frequencies according to best potential of your speakers as it will sound very much balanced. A flat equalizer setting results in abundance of mid range with a very little emphasis on the higher spectrum treble and the lower end bass.

After you set your equalizer to a smiley face, you can fine adjust it to your taste of listening for sounding balanced to your ears. If you want to use the loudness setting on your head unit, you will have to upgrade your stock factory speakers. You cannot use such features with ordinary stock speaker as they will not be able to sound good as it should. The loudness setting on the aftermarket head units boost the extreme end frequencies even if they are set at Flat. So this has to be considered that loudness should be activated according to the equalizer settings, so that they should not introduce distortion when they both are activated. They both should be tuned to balance the sound for overall spectrum.