How do I use the equalizer?

[Magnetic1]

I know in settings->music->equalizer there are many presets to choose from.

But I don't hear any difference in the sound for any of them.

I'm running TuneIn. So is there something wrong or equalizer only works with iTunes?

Thanks.

 

[giradman]

Hello - I cannot answer your specific question about the equalizer (EQ) working only w/ files in the Music app? And I've not even tried the EQ, however, I do play music on my stereo from the iDevice (cabled into an AUX port) and on Blue Tooth speakers - so when using the Music app on the iPad, do you hear differences w/ the EQ on, but not on TuneIn (which I have not used)? And if you do hear differences, are you listening to the built-in speaker(s) of the iPad, the headphone jack, or an external set of speakers - I suspect the latter two would give you the best opportunity to discern differences in 'sound modes' - let us know. Dave

 

[twerppoet]

Yep. As far as I know the equalizer settings only work in the Music app; which is why they are in the Music app's settings.

There are no system wide equalizer settings for the iPad. Either the app you are using has them, or not.

 

[Magnetic1]

Thanks. I saw a few apps that offer equalizers.

I was thinking out loud that someone can create an app to make headphones and speakers sound like any other headphones and speakers.

People buy many different kinds of headphones and speakers for a variety of reasons. This app would use like a ML (max length sequence) or complementary sequence to obtain the impulse response of the device in question. And the impulse response can then just be implemented via dsp.

 

[twerppoet]

An iOS version or so ago, this would not have been possible. With few exceptions apps are sandboxed and can not access information from other apps. That would include the audio stream. Especially a live audio stream.

Now it is merely difficult, or perhaps inconvenient would be a better word.

Apps can now pass sound streams from one to the other, live. However, it has to be built into both the original app and the modifying app, and both (or more) apps have to be running, therefore using up resources. It would only work with apps that included the ability to stream to a second app, or through a third bridging app.

The setup would also be more complicated than including equalizer settings in the app; which is why I expect most music playing apps continue to do this, or nothing at all.

It is my understanding that there are JailBreak tweaks that will do what you want, though I doubt any of them are compatible with iOS 7 yet. You can go to the Hacking area of this forum and read up on Jailbreaking if you like, and keep an eye on if/when the iOS 7 Jailbreak will do what you want. If you are not familiar with Jailbreaking, check out all the sticky threads first. They should answer most of your questions.

 

[Magnetic1]

Good to know. I'll have to investigate that some more. Thank you.

 

[carp]

Audyssey is a wonderful app that lists hundreds of different headphone makes and models, you can select your particular cans and the app then fine tunes the audio to suit the them, i use it with my Sennheiser HD 250 and the difference between the sound with the app on and off is astounding, it is certainly worth the 69p asking price

 

[Magnetic1]

I'll have to check it out. Thank you.

I knew it would be available.

 

[Magnetic1]

Actually maybe they are half way there.

I checked out Audyssey app and it looks like they might be trying to flatten the frequency response curve and maybe add spaciousness. But I haven't tried it yet, and I think the price went up to $0.99 dollars.

But basically I was thinking like home theater dsp effects that let you listen to audio in stadium or club or movie theater enviroment. It is more than just changing gain settings at different frequencies like what a conventional equalizer would do.

Maybe Audyssey will go further and take the impulse response of a headphone and invert it to get a flat response and then convert it to another headphones impulse response. If there is a way to separate just the phase component, then maybe you can go even further and extract only the sound stage while leaving the freq response curve alone.

Anyway I don't know what technology or technic Audyssey is using but I gather doing dsp will be more accurate.

Another interesting thing I have not seen yet is to make an infinite equalizer that has unlimited freq bands and gain levels. I think you can do this with remez and existing processing power. I have not heard remez filter to know if this would be worth while though.

Anyway I hope someone makes this possible because I realize that headphones are like new music or new movie, something new and different just seems to sound better than what I'm used to hearing all of the times.

 

[twerppoet]

Something you'd probably be interested in.

reevelsound

I remembered seeing this, or something else similar, but could not remember the name or find a link. But I stumbled across it looking at CES news today.