What Are the Best EQ Settings for Perfect Sound?

What Are the Best EQ Settings for Perfect Sound?

Whether you’re an audiophile or a regular music listener, you understand that all songs and music genres sound different. What you think sounds catchy or beautiful might be off-putting to someone else. This exact principle applies in getting a perfect EQ.

The world of music recording and listening revolves around thousands of different ways to manipulate sound. How a song is recorded, engineered, mixed, and mastered will set the foundation for how consumers perceive the art. It’s your job as a listener to sculpt what you want to hear by dreaming up your ideal EQ settings and finding the best equalizer settings for your listening preferences.

What Is EQ?

EQ stands for equalization in music and home audio, which is essentially the concept of pushing, pulling, and balancing frequencies in a recording through electrical means. You’ll find EQ settings on car stereos, headphones, televisions, and Bluetooth speakers in a basic form.

Providing a solid EQ doesn’t require superpowers, but it will become easier as you train your ear. Presets on stereos and theater systems are a good reference point for hearing the differences in an EQ setting. However, moving dials yourself will give you the ability to craft the ultimate listening experience.

What Is EQ?

Find the Right EQ for Any Setting

Understanding and applying EQ knowledge can improve your experience with various types of media and sound systems. Here’s how you can EQ some of the sound systems you use daily. 

Music at Home

Setting the EQ for your home stereo system is a delicate art. You’ll want to consider the music you listen to most frequently to determine the EQ. You may even want to have multiple go-to settings to switch between as you hop from genre to genre. 

As you adjust your home stereo’s EQ for music, start with a neutral setting. All high, mid and low dials should be at zero, where you can adjust to taste. Low frequencies help you feel the music through the bass and kick drum. High frequencies lead to clear, crisp vocals and cymbals, and guitars thrive in the middle to high range. 

Every room’s architecture will change how it reacts to sound. For the best EQ settings for music, dial in your EQ any time you move your stereo into a new space.

Car Audio

The audio in your car can sound fantastic with the right EQ settings. The best EQ setting for car audio will vary — every car speaker is different, so adjust your Q to taste.

Most cars have a three-band eq at most, meaning you can only adjust general high, middle and low frequencies without much nuance. If you have trouble hearing vocals in the car, bump up the middle and high frequencies a decibel or two. If you want to feel the beat, crank up the low end. But be careful — too much bass can blow your speakers. 

Home Theater Audio

A powerful surround sound system will transport you into the world you see on the screen. The best equalizer settings for home theater can help you embrace high-flying action scenes and subtle character interactions. Scooping middle frequencies while boosting the high and low ends helps your home theater’s audio system produce clearer dialogue while capturing the weight of action sequences. 

Gaming

Finding the best EQ settings for gaming is similar to EQing for a home theater. In both cases, you want the audio to help with complete immersion. Your console or PC may have some EQ settings that you can switch between, to try a few out to find one you like and adjust to taste from there. Low frequencies can give some oomph to the explosive action in shooters and action-adventure games. Middle and high frequencies might help you pick up on an opponent’s footsteps.

Frequencies and Decibels

Achieving optimal equalizer settings boils down to frequencies measured in hertz (Hz) and how loud they’re amplified (measured in dB). The most important distinction in setting an EQ recognizes the need to add in or subtract specific frequencies. Follow the guide below for insight on where instruments sit on the sonic spectrum:

  • 20Hz: This point is the absolute lower frequencies of the EQ. Bass instruments and kick drums begin here but can only be heard with a subwoofer.
  • 50Hz: A second bass region. More user-friendly with most speakers. Bass and drums still dominating this zone.
  • 100Hz: Start to hear more bass in your mix. Drums and lower tone instruments enter.
  • 200Hz: This is where your “woofing” sound of bass and drums enters. Lower sounding guitars and pianos are present.
  • 500Hz: Midrange frequencies of horns, bass, and vocals.
  • 1kHz: Guitars, piano, and snare drums live in this frequency range.
  • 2kHz: Influential in vocal sounds. Timbre sounds less “nasally” when cut.
  • 5kHz: Range for electric guitars (distorted and clean).
  • 10kHz: Drumming cymbals and the higher ranges of synths and pianos live here.
  • 20kHz: Humans can hear just above this frequency, so this region handles extremely high-frequency tones.

How to Get Your Perfect Sound With EQ Settings

Getting the best EQ settings for any application begins with moving frequencies in and out. In other words, play with the dials to discover which frequencies you enjoy hearing the most. 

How to get the perfect EQ settings

Different genres may demand different EQ settings to achieve the sound you crave. Are you a fan of the thick bass in electronic dance music? Try adding more decibels in the 20 to 100Hz range. Do you wish you could hear the snap of the snare more clearly on your hip-hop beats? Try dialing in the 500 to 1,000Hz range. If you want to hear the sparkling highs of music across genres, you should focus your efforts on the 5,000 to 10,000Hz range. 

It may be tempting to crank up the decibel ranges you want, but sometimes, you need to use more finesse to get the best audio equalizer settings. Some of the best tricks derive from finding the frequencies you don’t like and slowly fading them out. This is a technique known as “cutting” frequencies. Pushing too many frequencies forward may create a muffled or distorted sound. Using your equalizer to “cut” or “carve” unwanted frequencies and then turning up the master volume could give you a better sound.

If you’re new to EQ, try selecting a preset and moving from there. Eventually, you’ll be able to place all controls in the center and set each level to your exact specifications. Learning where instruments sit in the frequency range will ultimately help you set up your EQ for the best listening experience.

Audio Equipment at Record Head

Record Head allows you to buy and sell consumer electronics and media. We offer a wide variety of new and used studio gear, new and used musical instruments, and vintage vinyl records for your listening pleasure. Many of our stereo equipment products also contain great onboard EQ capabilities.

Contact Record Head today for more information about our products.

Audio Equipment at Record Head