learthworml said:
Let me expalin why I like parametric EQ's better and fully independent digital EQ's I should have said. Graphic EQ's are great for the average system, but are often limited in their tuning capabilities, besides the top end audiocontrol digital graphic EQ's. Lets say you have seas lotus mids, which are hot right now, and you want to get rid of the huge sharp peak at 4.5k at that only. That would be hard with a graphic eq, but with a parametric you can set the q to the exact amount you want. As far as digital EQ's go, I meant fully digital independent channel, L/R, Highs/Mids. So you can EQ the mids and tweets and l/r separately, which are very important for imaging and tonality. I think graphic EQ's were great, but are outdated. My ideal EQ is an h900 or a working Alto drive 30.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but parametrics are not the end all be all either! I think what many people don't understand is that while they can be more powerful, if you don't know what you are doing, you can do more harm then good.
Also, parametric eq's often have very few bands - if you start dedicating bands to take out little peaks here and there, you are going to run out of EQ really fast. Many also can't over lap, so to fix some flaws, you can ruin other areas.
If graphic eq's were so bad and "outdated" do you really think that AC would have developed all of their new digital eq's to be 30 band graphic units with two bands of parametric or alpine would have put independent graphic eq's on all channels of the H700 and H900?
The deal here is that EQ's (whether parametric or graphic) both have their benefits. Your best bet is a combination of both, that way you can take care of most flaws with the graphic eq, then come back around with some finishing touches with a parametric - this is how many people who compete tune their systems.
Of course there is always one way to skin a cat - and neither are wrong. The nice thing is that the dawn of the digital processor has allowed the combo of both types in an affordable package.
So everyone should know the tradeoffs and pick your own poison :thumbup:
The other thing to remember is that an EQ is ONLY a finishing touch. If you have very large cuts or boosts, there is probably something wrong with your system (bad phase, x-over point, etc). And it's generally always better to cut then it is to boost.