iTunes plug-ins

Phelonious Ponk · Feb 7, 2011

I don't use eq much, but when I do, I use the little graphic eq built into iTunes. A more powerful eq could be fun sometimes, as would other iTunes-related tools. I have one, for example, called TuneUp, that will search out meta data and provide links to info, videos, etc. related to the track currently playing. Anybody know of any great iTunes plug-ins, particularly eq, worth trying out?

Tim

Vincent Kars · Feb 8, 2011

I’m using Win7 so the best plugin is Bootcamp….

AU Graphic Equalizer is a 31 band EQ, freeware
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/emerald/4.html

Phelonious Ponk · Feb 9, 2011

Vincent Kars said:
I’m using Win7 so the best plugin is Bootcamp….

AU Graphic Equalizer is a 31 band EQ, freeware
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/emerald/4.html

Yeah, I tried to wade through that sixmoons review last night. While speakers with pretty wildly erratic response, tamed by, of all things, digital processing, seems to be at odds with the audiophile ethos, evidently it is ok if accomplished by a $3000 iTunes plug-in. I just want more robust digital eq that I can manipulate myself and tag to specific tracks like iTunes eq. Though being a near field listener, room optimization could be useful as well. I'm at a loss as to why someone with a larger listening space would want to optimize it for one chair, though. Doesn't that, by design, compromise it everywhere else?

Tim

Vincent Kars · Feb 9, 2011

I enjoyed the review.
Especially using a graphic EQ where a parametric one should be used gives a nice insight in the way Spatial works. Revealing what 3000,- buys you.

The easy answer is to invert your argument.
Shouldn’t we prefer a solution optimized for 1 seat instead of one not optimized for any seats at all?
I think there are a couple of people on this form better qualified to enlighten you about room correction then I am.

Scott Borduin · Feb 9, 2011

Phelonious Ponk said:
Yeah, I tried to wade through that sixmoons review last night. While speakers with pretty wildly erratic response, tamed by, of all things, digital processing, seems to be at odds with the audiophile ethos, evidently it is ok if accomplished by a $3000 iTunes plug-in. I just want more robust digital eq that I can manipulate myself and tag to specific tracks like iTunes eq. Though being a near field listener, room optimization could be useful as well. I'm at a loss as to why someone with a larger listening space would want to optimize it for one chair, though. Doesn't that, by design, compromise it everywhere else?

Tim

There are a lot of audio plugins available for OSx, but they all use the industry standard AU or VST plugin interfaces. As with almost every other industry standard, iTunes doesn't support AU or VST

However, some people report that you can use Audio Hijack Pro:

http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/

to host VST/AU plugins in the audio pipeline. There is no way to tag a particular EQ to a particular track using this methodology, however. Here is one VST/AU parametric EQ which people recommend:

http://www.apulsoft.ch/apqualizr/

Room optimization is very definitely useful even if you aren't trying to optimize for one specific location in the room. All small rooms - i.e. all domestic listening rooms - will exhibit modal resonances at lower frequencies. These resonances will correspond to peaks in the frequency response in many areas of the room. Even more importantly, modal resonances will have a long "decay" time - effectively, the room will continue to "play" the note long after it has ended. Removing energy from these modal resonances - either through passive absorption or electronic EQ, or both - will scrape away a layer of "mud" from the sound and result in better clarity everywhere in the room. And BTW, there is nothing about near or far field listening positions per se which mitigate room modes - it comes down to the very specific locations of speakers and listener in the room, and placement will ever only do so much.

I personally use a VST parametric EQ plugin to tame a room resonance in my otherwise very well-treated room, and even on a quite high-end setup, it results in significant improvement.

Phelonious Ponk · Feb 9, 2011

The

easy answer is to invert your argument.
Shouldn’t we prefer a solution optimized for 1 seat instead of one not optimized for any seats at all?

Perhaps. I guess it depends on how, and how much it compromises the rest of the room.

Tim

RUR · Feb 10, 2011

I'm at a loss as to why someone with a larger listening space would want to optimize it for one chair, though. Doesn't that, by design, compromise it everywhere else?

99% of the time, I'm a solitary listener (in a dedicated room). As such, I strive for no compromise at the listening position. The rest of the room is immaterial. I guess I don't see why that's mystifying, Tim.

Ever measure your system for (at minimum) FR and spectral decay using REW, XTZ or similar? Try measuring the LP, then a couple of feet left or right or forward or back and see what happens.

Phelonious Ponk · Feb 10, 2011

RUR said:
99% of the time, I'm a solitary listener (in a dedicated room). As such, I strive for no compromise at the listening position. The rest of the room is immaterial. I guess I don't see why that's mystifying, Tim.

Probably just mystifying to me, RUR, because I listen near field and get the same effect dedicating a lot less room to the process. But if your listening space is shared space, or if you want that unique quality that comes from pressurizing a big space, I can see the point.

Tim

RUR · Feb 10, 2011

Phelonious Ponk said:
Probably just mystifying to me, RUR, because I listen near field and get the same effect dedicating a lot less room to the process. But if your listening space is shared space, or if you want that unique quality that comes from pressurizing a big space, I can see the point.

Presumably, by "get the same effect", you mean one optimum (by definition) listening position, surrounded by less than optimum. It's not shared space, but if, by "unique quality that comes from pressurizing a big space", you mean experiencing the bottom musical octave at appropriate levels and with proper decay characteristics, then, yes, I find that desirable.

Have you ever measured your room? It's an instructive exercise and, as ScottB points out, listening nearfield may somewhat mitigate, but cannot avoid basic soundfield physics.

Scott Borduin · Feb 10, 2011

Phelonious Ponk said:
Probably just mystifying to me, RUR, because I listen near field and get the same effect dedicating a lot less room to the process. But if your listening space is shared space, or if you want that unique quality that comes from pressurizing a big space, I can see the point.

Tim

As I said above, near field listening does not accomplish what you think it does. Near field listening increases the proportion of mid/high frequency energy which arrives directly, vs. that reflected from vertical walls and ceiling (the floor dip you can't do much about). But near field does nothing to reduce the amount of energy stored in room modes, and the deleterious effects of that on frequency response and overall clarity. Your room will still hit the "sustain" pedal on all those modal frequencies, and the impact on your sound is very much what you'd expect from that analogy. Dealing with modal resonances in the 250hz and down range is the first order job of room correction (or room treatment).

See the following post, and note that the "before" measurements were taken from a near field listening setup:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...eatment-series-Part-6-interpreting-the-graphs

Phelonious Ponk · Feb 10, 2011

I worked in a lot of studios back in the day, so I know near field is no panacea. It does help, though.

Tim

RUR · Feb 10, 2011

ScottB said:
See the following post, and note that the "before" measurements were taken from a near field listening setup:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...eatment-series-Part-6-interpreting-the-graphs

Particularly informative since Ethan's graphs represent the FR of interest for Tim's 9.1's - ~40-20kHz. Tim's specific data may be different, but will, in the absence of treatments and/or EQ, almost certainly exhibit similar issues.

Which, of course, neatly circles us back to the OP and potential alternatives...

tonmeister2008 · Mar 19, 2011

Vincent Kars said:
I’m using Win7 so the best plugin is Bootcamp….

AU Graphic Equalizer is a 31 band EQ, freeware
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/emerald/4.html

A serious limitation of this 31 band EQ is that the center frequencies and Q's (ie filter bandwidths) are fixed. You need a parametric EQ that has adjustable frequency and Q parameters that allows you more exactly correct the frequency magnitude distortions from loudspeaker/room interactions.

It's been shown by me, Floyd Toole, and Consumer Report's speaker reviews that 1/3-octave loudspeaker measurements provide insufficient frequency resolution to equalize loudspeakers and rooms. Our perception of frequency resolution is much finer than 1/3-octave.

See http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=12847

JackD201 · Mar 21, 2011

tonmeister2008 said:
A serious limitation of this 31 band EQ is that the center frequencies and Q's (ie filter bandwidths) are fixed. You need a parametric EQ that has adjustable frequency and Q parameters that allows you more exactly correct the frequency magnitude distortions from loudspeaker/room interactions.

It's been shown by me, Floyd Toole, and Consumer Report's speaker reviews that 1/3-octave loudspeaker measurements provide insufficient frequency resolution to equalize loudspeakers and rooms. Our perception of frequency resolution is much finer than 1/3-octave.

See http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=12847

+1 with an Amen

Vincent Kars · Mar 21, 2011

That is the great fun of the 6Moons review.
You pay Spatial $3000,- for software to get this amateurish type of room correction in return.

Tam Lin · Mar 21, 2011

Phelonious Ponk said:
While speakers with pretty wildly erratic response, tamed by, of all things, digital processing, seems to be at odds with the audiophile ethos, evidently it is ok if accomplished by a $3000 iTunes plug-in. I just want more robust digital eq that I can manipulate myself and tag to specific tracks like iTunes eq.

$3000 for a plug-in? I must be in the wrong business. I recently wrote a foobar plug-in that applies a convolution filter based on the track's tags and sample rate. You can download it for FREE from the foobar forum on hydrogenaudio: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=82745&mode=linear

amirm · Mar 21, 2011

Tam Lin said:
$3000 for a plug-in? I must be in the wrong business. I recently wrote a foobar plug-in that applies a convolution filter based on the track's tags and sample rate. You can download it for FREE from the foobar forum on hydrogenaudio: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=82745&mode=linear

Welcome to the Forum Tam. My understanding is that for $3000 you also get a guy to dial into your room, measure it and then correct it. Alas, they didn't quite get there....

I read your thread but was not very descriptive. How do people create the filter coefficient (EQ files)?

Tam Lin · Mar 21, 2011

Hmmm, I thought my description was quite complete. There are no filter coefficients, just an impulse response file. Mind you, I am not an audio expert; just a simple-minded programmer. As I understand it, any audio system can be completely characterized by its impulse response. For example, pass an impulse through any filter, amp, loudspeaker, microphone, etc. and record the response. Then convolve the response with any signal and the result is identical to that signal being passed through the thing producing the response. With foo_dsp_yac you can use any of hundreds of canned impulse response files, pass an impulse through any of hundreds of canned filters or a custom filter created using any of dozens of programs. Whatever the characteristics of the filter, they will be exactly duplicated by the convolution. This is very basic DSP. I recommend http://www.dspguide.com/pdfbook.htm for a more thorough description on this and related topics.

amirm · Mar 21, 2011

When I said filter coefficient, that is the frequency domain equiv. of the time domain convolver. I was asking asking how to use your convolver for Room EQ. I realize there are impulse responses around for audio EQ. I only know of Audiolense for room EQ front-end to convolver although have not done an exhaustive search.

Tam Lin · Mar 21, 2011

When I said filter coefficient, that is the frequency domain equiv. of the time domain convolver.

As I see it, an impulse response file is very different from filter coefficients. They are not interchangeable in any practical way. The tools needed to create them and the applications needed to use them are very different.

I was asking asking how to use your convolver for Room EQ.

Create an impulse response file that defines the filter characteristics you want and there you go.

If you read my post in the context of the text I quoted you should see that I was not proposing foo_dsp_yac as the ultimate in room correction software but I was offering it as an audio filter plugin that changes filter characteristics based on the tags associated with the audio file, which is what Phelonious Ponk said he wanted.

I just want more robust digital eq that I can manipulate myself and tag to specific tracks like iTunes eq.

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