Can someone advise on a good >Graphic< EQ, either in a HU or separate?

 

New member
Username: Anjinsan

Los AngelesUSA

Post Number: 6
Registered: Nov-05
Ok, lemme get this out here and try to defuse the naysayers right off the bat because this is something I've been wanting to get off my chest for literally two decades:

I want a *Graphic* EQ, not one of those &%@!#@%&! parametric things.

I grew up on graphic EQs and I know how to use them, and with six trillion passwords, numbers and other junk clogging up my remaining synapses I just don't want to dink around with another learning curve. More importantly, even though I fully understand all of the great-and-glorious advantages of "center frequency adjustment" and "bandwidth adjustment" offered by parametric equalizers, I have just one small (I jest) problem with them:

I like to - brace yourselves - *change* the EQ on-the-fly. Like, not just between one disc and another, but between one song and another.

Some of the feedback I've gotten from people leads me to believe that everybody else just sets their parametric EQs once, stuffs it under a seat or behind a panel somewhere and never touches it again.

Hasn't anybody else come across a particular disc that has, say, a mix that's significantly more bass-heavy than others? Or something with too harsh a midrange? I come across that from song to song on a lot of discs.

Sometimes recording studio engineers mess up - or maybe they decide they want the sound to be a way that I just don't care for. I want to change it, 'cause I am literally in the driver's seat. One example: "Time is the Enemy" by Hellborg/Lane/Sipe has a bottom-heavy mix compared with the trio's previous disc "Temporal Analogues of Paradise."

With a graphic EQ I have the full spread of frequencies sitting right in front of me, allowing me to reach over and make a virtually instantaneous tweak - without becoming Siamese twins with that 18-wheeler on the freeway beside me. I find life fairly enjoyable and want to hang onto it. Right now I have an Alpine HU (which I'm going to eliminate within a couple months,) that a.) I never attempt messing with on the road because the EQ is buried beneath six layers of pure multi-tiered menu crap, and b.) makes me want to break things and strangle anyone within reach when I attempt to adjust it whilst sitting at home.

I suppose the ideal thing would be a graphic equalizer that had a mode you could switch to (temporarily,) that would allow you to set the desired frequencies and spreads for each, but with the actual controls being the same as standard graphic EQ - a nice lineup of knobs/sliders with boost/cut for each. Whether those controls are physical pots or digital renderings of them on a screen doesn't matter to me, as long as I can set the thing to stay put until I want to see a clock or track name, etc. And of course as long as they function as standard graphic EQ controls.

The million-dollar question:

Does anybody know of any current manufacturer who makes such a thing - either integrated into an MP3-capable head unit or as a standalone component?

If these actually exist, which are rated best?

Thanks for listening, and for any info anyone has.
 

Silver Member
Username: Tjmutlow

Post Number: 432
Registered: Sep-05
Pioneer makes a nice unit, but it is din sized
 

Gold Member
Username: Mikechec9

Http://www.cardomain.c...

Post Number: 1899
Registered: May-05
alpine pxa-h701 controlled by the rux c701

alto mobile ucs-pro controlled by the ucs-rm2
http://www.altomobile.com/html/ucs_pro.html

pioneer dex-p9 controlled by the deq-p9

rockford fosgate 3sixty
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