[teaston]

I've now had a good amount of time to play with the HK system and i am very impressed, in fact i think it's currently in a tie with the engine as my favourite things about the car!

My findings with the standard, supposedly flat EQ settings is that there is considerably too much mid range, so the first pic below shows where i think the EQ curve genuinely is flat, at least for the music i listen too which mainly consists of hip hop, rnb, dance, dubstep, grime & pop. Although i have also played a fair bit of very varied music from the other halfs phone over BT.

Second pic shows how i've set the separate bass & treble controls to my personal preference, i like lots of bass and a bit extra treble. You should of course adjust these to your own personal preference. Also definitely better with L7 on, it gives the effect of voices coming from the front and music from the sides, which on the occasional track makes some sounds absolutely incredible, like they move around you!

Anyway i thought i'd share this with everyone in case it helps, i'm by no means an audio expert, nor am i an audiophile with a multi thousand pound home system, but i have a love for music and think i have a fairly good ear.

[PabloK]

Yikes my ears would bleed with those highs.

[brommy]

Thanks teaston. That's a lot of treble and some serious bass.

As an aside, I think audiophiles recommend keeping the equaliser differences as close to the zero position as possible. For example 100hz at +1 and 200hz at +4 would be set as 100hz at -1 and 200hz at +2, thus maintaining the difference of 3 between them. By that reckoning your settings could all be reduced by about 3 clicks and still maintain the equaliser variation.

Having written the above, I have no idea what the effect of increasing the bass and treble sliders have on the individually changed frequencies.

[teaston]

Originally Posted by PabloK

Yikes my ears would bleed with those highs.

Really!? I haven't turned the treble frequencies up much! There was very little treble on the standard settings, was a bit like listening with my hands over my ears!

[teaston]

Originally Posted by brommy

Thanks teaston. That's a lot of treble and some serious bass.

As an aside, I think audiophiles recommend keeping the equaliser differences as close to the zero position as possible. For example 100hz at +1 and 200hz at +4 would be set as 100hz at -1 and 200hz at +2, thus maintaining the difference of 3 between them. By that reckoning your settings could all be reduced by about 3 clicks and still maintain the equaliser variation.

Having written the above, I have no idea what the effect of increasing the bass and treble sliders have on the individually changed frequencies.

I see what you mean, i don't know what difference it makes but i'll do it if that's the proper way!

[F30AM]

OMG. Thump, thump, screech, screech. Those settings would never do for Classical Music or Voice. A pre-requisite is that you should always set your system for male and female voice to sound natural. No boom or excessive sibilance. But everyone hears differently. It is all to do with each individual's auditory processing.

[brommy]

Originally Posted by teaston

I see what you mean, i don't know what difference it makes but i'll do it if that's the proper way!

Like I wrote, I am no audiophile but I have read what I posted, more than once.

As you've had a good listen and decided what you like, it will be an interesting test if you can spot any difference by taking all the frequencies down three clicks. According to the theory, you shouldn't, but I genuinely don't know.

[teaston]

Originally Posted by F30AM

OMG. Thump, thump, screech, screech. Those settings would never do for Classical Music or Voice. A pre-requisite is that you should always set your system for male and female voice to sound natural. No boom or excessive sibilance. But everyone hears differently. It is all to do with each individual's auditory processing.

With the EQ settings i've given i should think anything would sound as intended. As i said though the separate treble & bass controls should be adjusted to personal taste.

[Andykf31]

Originally Posted by PabloK

Yikes my ears would bleed with those highs.

And my ass would evacuate with those bass frequencies

[Deimos]

Im really looking forward to this upgrade in my car, the Bose in my audi is just too boomy and it annoys the hell out of me, to the point where i have to constantly adjust mid and bass for different types of music.

[....,,,,..,,..]

Originally Posted by F30AM

OMG. Thump, thump, screech, screech. Those settings would never do for Classical Music or Voice. A pre-requisite is that you should always set your system for male and female voice to sound natural. No boom or excessive sibilance. But everyone hears differently. It is all to do with each individual's auditory processing.

Yep it should reflect your auditory responses.

Yoofs can have pretty flat responses as they can hear all the high and mid tones.

Older people need highs boosted (usually)

Me after 20 years jet noise need them all boosted lol.

Admittedly for some of Teastons music, the volume button to off would be best solution

[Pablo68]

Originally Posted by Brigand

Admittedly for some of Teastons music, the volume button to off would be best solution

Actually isn't a high quality amp a bit pointless when streaming over BT as the codec used for compression is only 16bit due to the 700(ish) Kbps bandwidth available?

I've played with the eq settings a bit and as good as the HK system is (even though my ears are shot) I much prefer the other sound track in my car, and mostly just turn the stereo off...lovely bass thrum with plenty of growly vocals which often reaches a howling crescendo

[chiark]

Music is a personal taste so there's no right or wrong, but after a lot of playing around I found that flat, with L7 off, and perhaps taking 1 level out at 500Hz, sounded best to me. I will RTA it to find out what the default EQ is actually reproducing, but it's not that bad to my ears.

My only advice would be to be careful with the volume knob if you're adding that much EQ, and then adding to it by adding more bass on the master page. I don't know what each increment corresponds to on the EQ page, but they're definitely audible so I'd guess they're at least 1dB, which is about the minimum change the human ear can perceive IIRC.

To double the perceived volume of a sound, general wisdom is that that's about a 10dB increase.

The bad news is hearing, and sound pressure level (SPL) are logarithmic. A 3dB increase needs a doubling of power... So 10dB increase requires 10x the power.

So adding in a lot of EQ (say 6dB) then adding to the bass too, you could conceivably be more than quadrupling the power you're asking to be sent to the speakers at those frequencies. The amp may not be able to produce this, and the speakers may not be able to handle it either for the low frequencies, which need a lot of speaker extension. Listen out for a 'cracking' sound, which will be the speaker hitting its end stop, but this will be hard to hear as it'll first happen in the under seat woofers, I guess.

It also depends how you like your music played. I like a natural, laid back approach (for home, think Kef speakers and an Arcam amp) rather than having music played 'at' me.

L7 I found initially sounds good, but then after a while the unnatural echo it introduces really annoyed me, and it's unusable when listening to voice on the radio. Turning it off does make everything sound instantly duller, but it's more like the recording is . I found it suited me better particularly for long journeys.

But honestly, I'd be very careful with the amount of EQ you're adding there as that's a lot.

[Rich9600]

Wow! @teaston looks like a man who likes lots of bass!

I'm a bit of a HiFi geek and have found the HK system in my car to be fairly well balanced. I find that with neutral settings and L7 on, it works reasonably well for varied music. Classical through to D&B... Though, when stationary I sometimes find that the bass can be excessive! Particularly on modern R&B influenced music. Long artificial bass notes.

The best test, for me and my tastes, is some 70's rock. Good recording quality and dynamic range (lost when audio compression is added, everything within a defined intensity band of volume). Pink Floyd and Neil Young are my reference points. Some very quiet bits etc.

L7 seems to add compression, turning this off makes things sound better (to me) when stationary. Though, it is definitely an advantage on the move.

I have my iPod classic connected directly to the armrest USB. Last weekend we used iOS TomTom and streamed it and iPhone music over Bluetooth. This sounded so flat, missing in every area! BT audio is limited bandwidth, so it compresses everything even more making it sound flat. iPhone sound d better when connected by Lightning-USB.

@teaston, if you want the best out if your HK I would ignore BT audio and use the USB. Try another listen purely based on a wired USB connection. I think you'll hear a difference!

[chiark]

Agreed, I play back 320kbps or decent quality VBR from the music collection, copied from USB... Bluetooth is useful, admittedly, but the music collection feature is so damn good I always use that.

[teaston]

I really don't know why people say the sound quality over BT is poor, the songs played from my girlfriends iPhone 5c sound absolutely fantastic!

Also there's is definitely no problem with distortion, i have tried turning the volume up very very high and still it doesn't distort, it really is an impressive system!

BTW all the listening and adjusting has been done while on the move, not at a standstill.

[Dave_3]

As your car, and speakers, are quite new you should take into account that the speakers will still be bedding in.

I came directly from the HK system in my E92 (nicely run in after 7 years) to the HK system in my F32 and was initially a bit disappointed. It just seemed a bit lacklustre and brittle, but now seems to be warming up and is a lot richer and smoother.

In a few weeks you may be tweaking your settings again.

D.

[Steven1077]

Those setting are very close to what mine is set to only I have even more treble

[JoshB25]

Is the HK system different in the F30 compared with the one in the 1 series F20? I cannot adjust the equalizer in my current 1 series

[Yellowpinkie]

Originally Posted by Dave_3

As your car, and speakers, are quite new you should take into account that the speakers will still be bedding in.

I came directly from the HK system in my E92 (nicely run in after 7 years) to the HK system in my F32 and was initially a bit disappointed. It just seemed a bit lacklustre and brittle, but now seems to be warming up and is a lot richer and smoother.

In a few weeks you may be tweaking your settings again.

D.

How long do you think it takes to bed in and what sort of improvement might you see (hear!) ?

thanks

[Rich9600]

Originally Posted by Yellowpinkie

How long do you think it takes to bed in and what sort of improvement might you see (hear!) ?

thanks

They very rapidly improve in the used frequencies. Though, they are still improving after thousands of hours of use.

So after a thousand miles of normal use you should see a noticeable improvement. I know I have. Think of the 1200 miles BMW recommend in the manual for the mechanicals. Speakers are mechanicals also...

[Yellowpinkie]

Originally Posted by Rich9600

They very rapidly improve in the used frequencies. Though, they are still improving after thousands of hours of use.

So after a thousand miles of normal use you should see a noticeable improvement. I know I have. Think of the 1200 miles BMW recommend in the manual for the mechanicals. Speakers are mechanicals also...

thanks for the reply. Do they really improve or do we just get accustomed to the sound so that it sounds better to our ears?