DAC / AMP that have EQ?

[CephDigital]

Hi there! 

Currently have an iFi Zen stack (DAC V2 + CAN) paired with the Monolith M1570. These sound best with Oratory1990's EQ profile but I can't apply EQ to all the devices I connect the stack to (PS5, work laptop etc.) so is there anything I can add to my stack to add EQ or any DACs or amps that add manual EQ? 

[ninbura]

Hardware equalizers can be had, but even the lower end ones are fairly pricey:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Q9DANA/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B004NDHZTY&linkCode=as2&tag=ledgernote-20&linkId=KUVUVIRKLQAGUWWC&th=1

[CephDigital]

21 minutes ago, Ninbura said:

Hardware equalizers can be had, but even the lower end ones are fairly pricey:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Q9DANA/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B004NDHZTY&linkCode=as2&tag=ledgernote-20&linkId=KUVUVIRKLQAGUWWC&th=1

Holy crap that is big. I was thinking more along the lines of a digitally controlled one so that it'd be a reasonable size.

[ninbura]

23 hours ago, CephDigital said:

Holy crap that is big. I was thinking more along the lines of a digitally controlled one so that it'd be a reasonable size.

Yeah a lot of audio gear is built to be rack mounted, I'd throw something like this under the desk.

[H713]

MiniDSP is an option. Works well enough, though it isn't the lowest noise thing out there. XTA has some very nice hardware that can do it too and will likely be lower noise, but it's also rackmount and is pretty spendy (> $2k). You could also do it using Soundweb London boxes, but you run into the same problem with cost and form factor, plus you add fan noise to your problem. 

 

Unfortunately, doing it in software (DSP) takes some heavy-lifting, and that limits how cheap it is to implement. It's better than trying to do it with hardware, as a decent stereo parametric EQ is going to set you back many hundreds of dollars and won't be small.

 

I'm working on a digitally controlled analog parametric EQ project, but I won't realistically have that done for another year given the amount of real work I have to get done, and we're coming up on the lowered-productivity (sailing) season. 

[GoldenSound]

Generally you'd want to avoid hardware EQ unless you NEED to use it. Especially if you aren't willing to spend several grand on pro level gear.

For an all in one with EQ, you'd want to look at the RME ADI-2. That has a lot of DSP features built in including parametric EQ.

If wanting to use a different DAC, one of the MiniDSP products would work

[eskamobob1]

On 4/27/2022 at 6:37 AM, CephDigital said:

Hi there! 

Currently have an iFi Zen stack (DAC V2 + CAN) paired with the Monolith M1570. These sound best with Oratory1990's EQ profile but I can't apply EQ to all the devices I connect the stack to (PS5, work laptop etc.) so is there anything I can add to my stack to add EQ or any DACs or amps that add manual EQ? 

Honestly, it will be cheaper to change the headphones you use than it will be to implement hardware EQ

[ninbura]

On 4/29/2022 at 11:37 AM, GoldenOne said:

Generally you'd want to avoid hardware EQ unless you NEED to use it. Especially if you aren't willing to spend several grand on pro level gear.

For an all in one with EQ, you'd want to look at the RME ADI-2. That has a lot of DSP features built in including parametric EQ.

If wanting to use a different DAC, one of the MiniDSP products would work

RME's Babyface Pro is cheaper than their ADI-2 and has DSP with EQ. It's only a 3-band EQ per-channel, but with a loopback cable on the ADAT port you can apply an EQ to the input and output giving you 9 bands. Technically if you keep looping the signal back you can have up to 27 bands by the time it comes out of the phones output. The delay on physical loopback with RME interfaces is so low that it's imperceivable.

The Babyface Pro is also more capable in terms of routing, IO, when comparted to the ADI-2. Of course the ADI-2 has the highest end phone output, but for OP's headphones of choice the output on the Babyface should be plenty. 

Almost all my audio gear is RME (MADI FX, UFX+, RayDAT, ADI-192 DD, ADI-648) and I highly recommend it. Didn't even think to suggest it as price for their cheapest interface with DSP is outrageously expensive for most people, but I guess that's what you're saying.

[oratory1990]

A little late, but since I'm getting this question quite a lot recently: The Qudelix 5K is the most affordable DAC/amp with integrated DSP (EQ) that I know of. It sells for around 100 bucks, has enough power for most headphones and most importantly, has 20 bands of parametric EQ available.

[saintlouisbagels]

3 hours ago, oratory1990 said:

A little late, but since I'm getting this question quite a lot recently: The Qudelix 5K is the most affordable DAC/amp with integrated DSP (EQ) that I know of. It sells for around 100 bucks, has enough power for most headphones and most importantly, has 20 bands of parametric EQ available.

Schiit Audio also makes the Loki Mini+ for tone controls (only 4 knobs though).

Surprised no one mentioned this option.

[Psittac]

Schiit has some options if your in the states

 

Loki Mini+

Lokius

Loki Max

[oratory1990]

On 8/24/2023 at 6:36 PM, saintlouisbagels said:

Schiit Audio also makes the Loki Mini+ for tone controls (only 4 knobs though).

Surprised no one mentioned this option.

The Loki is not a parametric EQ, it has fixed frequency and q-factor parameters, you can only change the gain.  

That's nice to do some broad changes, but insufficient to tackle the idiosyncracies of your headphone

[Cocococo]

On 8/24/2023 at 1:41 PM, oratory1990 said:

A little late, but since I'm getting this question quite a lot recently: The Qudelix 5K is the most affordable DAC/amp with integrated DSP (EQ) that I know of. It sells for around 100 bucks, has enough power for most headphones and most importantly, has 20 bands of parametric EQ available.

Thought this was a new thread for a moment but this is still the correct answer, nuts just how brilliant that little thing really is. Would recommend it over pretty much all desktop dac/ amps in similar budget, plus it has the option of bluetooth and a great companion app to go with it