PC Equalizer user feedback.

[tuff]

I use a desktop PC (win10) that feeds into a Peachtree decco 65 via USB. Few months ago i installed an open source PC Equalizer(GUI) and Equalizer APO to tweak music streaming off YouTube and others. Work's great. Couple of day's ago i started to dig in and see what else this nifty piece of software was capable of, and just started randomly testing features other than the EQ board.
Now the second image settings has something called phase invert and i played around with on-off while playing some YouTube songs, and moticed that If i inverted only one signal, the sound would be much fuller than otherwise (especially in the upper and lower bass regions). What baffled me was it was not on all songs being played. Some sounded dry with much less bass than others. Anyone can fill me up on some info, it would be great.

 

[Ravindra Desai]

Hello,

Unlike in movies where LFE are recorded in phase and with same amplitude in both left and right, everything in stereo music capture is in stereo.
One mike may pick up a bass instrument more prominently than other. When this is happening, the other mike which is further away from the instrument also picks up the signal but with a different phase angle since it receives the signal a bit later.

So in stereo music, bass is bound to have random phase and amplitude in both left and right channel. Thus L+R can cause addition in some cases while L+(-R) can cause addition in other.

I believe, what you are experiencing is normal for stereo music.

Edit: I am adding this after my initial response:

It will also largely depend on how the person on the mixer is creating a stereo mix. Live recordings and recording in a studio will also yield different results

Regards,

Ravindra.

 

[tuff]

I see what you are saying. So if there isn't much bass in any given song with both phases positive, then it means the recording itself does not have much bass, is that correct? Just that inverting one phase makes it sound much better than otherwise, albeit on some very specific songs. weird.

 

[hifitoaster]

Or it can be your headphone / speaker not perfect by having phase out on certain frequencies by default.by inverting them those becomes in phase and makes it fuller.

 

[hifitoaster]

It's a normal phenomenon in rooms which aren't treated well, but with headphones less likely.

 

[Ravindra Desai]

I see what you are saying. So if there isn't much bass in any given song with both phases positive, then it means the recording itself does not have much bass, is that correct? Just that inverting one phase makes it sound much better than otherwise, albeit on some very specific songs. weird.

Yes, you are correct.
You will always hear a difference when you invert since something that was getting added acoustically will now be now be cancelled making something else prominent and that shifted prominence may or may not be to your liking.

With a correctly recorded song, which almost all are, when you intentionally invert one channel, you will tend to lose sense of direction (making it sound diffused) of the vocals. In normal listening, the vocals would be anchored to the phantom center.

Regards,

Ravindra.

 

[jls001]

@tuff the second screen shot shows absolute phase reversal. It's very impressive that it allows this to be performed on per channel basis and not only as a ganged/tied together switch like in most real life hardware absolute phase toggle switches.

A huge chunk of historical recordings as well as modern recordings are (shoddily, IMO) recorded with inverted phases. Many people are very sensitive to wrong and correct phases, while others are totally impervious to phase reversals. My conclusion is this is because we hear things differently, and it has nothing to do with how experienced we are in critical listening. A friend notes down on the cover of every CD he has whether the phase is correct or needs reversal.

 

[tuff]

That is revealing. It would be nice to have a feature to flip phase on amplifiers. O well.

 

[sound_cycle]

Hello,

Unlike in movies where LFE are recorded in phase and with same amplitude in both left and right, everything in stereo music capture is in stereo.

I understood it slightly differently (Yggy has a invert phase button, I read this somewhere when reading about Yggy)

Basically it matters only for for bass attack. You can correct for the it should not suck when it should blow situation, so to speak. When the pressure wave in recording studio hits the microphone, that should make the speaker's woofer cone (or headphones) move "outwards", pushing the air towards the listener. If somehow inverted, the woofer will try to "suck" the air from the listener. This would smear transients. Not every is sensitive to it, many listeners cannot discern

Nothing to do with 2ch being different from HT or something on those lines. AFAIK. Which is not much.

ciao
gr

 

[jls001]

That is revealing. It would be nice to have a feature to flip phase on amplifiers. O well.

It's very addictive when phase switch is there on the remote itself

On the amp one needs to walk up to the amp

But the good thing is one can continue to "survive" when one had no such switch. It is only when one had tasted how much better the correct phase sounds (provided one's ears can discern it) that one starts missing this switch.

 

[tuff]

Addictive it is for sure. I used the eq for very specific materials, else I mostly kept it on bypass. Now I have to do it for every one just to check. It is the bass area that affects the most.

 

[sound_cycle]

Now the second image settings has something called phase invert and i played around with on-off while playing some YouTube songs, and moticed that If i inverted only one signal, the sound would be much fuller than otherwise (especially in the upper and lower bass regions). What baffled me was it was not on all songs being played. Some sounded dry with much less bass than others. Anyone can fill me up on some info, it would be great.

In Roon this is in the DSP speaker settings.

(not that any one asked)

ciao
gr