iTunes EQ

Quattroste

I recently bought a Audiolab 6000A amp and it's powering a set of Dali Zensor 3s. When streaming from a mac via Bluetooth I find the Zensors can be quite bass heavy and I have to use the EQ in iTunes to pull the bass back. This begs the question, should the EQ in iTunes even be on, or is it totally colouring the sound and making having a good amp pointless?

Richersounds.ie: Kenny

Quattroste wrote: »

I recently bought a Audiolab 6000A amp and it's powering a set of Dali Zensor 3s. When streaming from a mac via Bluetooth I find the Zensors can be quite bass heavy and I have to use the EQ in iTunes to pull the bass back. This begs the question, should the EQ in iTunes even be on, or is it totally colouring the sound and making having a good amp pointless?

Hi Quattroste.

To be honest we would never use EQ's as they are designed to alter the sound recording which takes away from how the artist recorded it.
Although some people do like a certain type of sound which this I suppose would help allow them to create. 

Most stereo amps have a direct button which overrides even the bass and treble controls on an amp which decodes the track the way the artist intended.
The Audiolab 6000A is a fantastic stereo amp and in my opinion would be more suited to the likes of the Monitor Audio Silver range.
Dali Zensor range can be a little bass heavy which makes them ideal for rock and metal or anything bass driven.

It could also be the track you are streaming as some of the compression rates the usual sites use are hit and miss.
Streaming for me as always going to be the hardest to get right unless you are using lossless audio files.
I use Tidal and Spotify ant home and there are some tracks I have listened to that sound horrible compared to playing the same track on CD or Vinyl.

I'm not too up to speed on MAC's as I have never owned one so I'm not sure if it would have the same direct feature built into its EQ? This might be a little questions for Apples tech team.

Quattroste

Thank you Kenny. The Monitor Audio Silver are a nice speaker. I have a set of KEF Q100's that I'll swap over and see if there is a major difference and then consider my options. I can turn off the EQ in iTunes so I get the pure recorded sound but as you know, that is based on the quality of the recording and final production.

Personally I like the Bass heavy sound, but even at low volumes the whole house can hear it and I guess neighbors which is not good. Positioning may be  a factor too.

Richersounds.ie: John

Hi Quattroste,

I sort of agree with Kenny - but I do think that the Dali are a good speaker TBH - of course the Silver is far better but then they are significantly more expensive as well... 

The Dali 5's are really suited to you if you do like Bass but as you say the positioning is really critical - if you wanted to tighten up the bass and critically reduce the noise transference I would try to keep the Dali 5's out from back and side walls ( deffo out of any corners) and you could try the concrete slab trick ( if you are allowed domestically!) pop out to your local Woodies and grab 2 paving slabs and put the Dali 5's on the slabs - it can make an amazing difference..

..and of course as Kenny says - eliminate all EQ - keep everything flat from the source and then you can use your cables and speakers to tune the final tonal balance rather than trying to correct an issue the whole way through the system..

Keep us posted,

ATVB,

John Mc & Crew