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Listening to music could be one of the best modes of entertainment while driving or sitting in the car. However, you must customize the equalizer settings to enhance or improve the music experience. For example, a high bass is recommended if you love listening to pop, rap, hip-hop, or EDM. Similarly, you can use mid-range EQ settings when listening to rock and metal.
I have discussed specific scenarios and other technical aspects of equalizer settings for car audio. This article will help you understand different types of equalizers, what settings are best for a particular type of music, and much more.
What Is An Equalizer?
An equalizer is a setting that allows you to attenuate frequencies per your taste. It is a technique for adjusting the loudness of different frequency ranges of an audio signal.
This equalizer setting displays the entire frequency spectrum in bands or ranges in “hertz.” The success or failure of this depends on the human ear, which has a frequency range of 20–20,000 Hz. This range is the basis for how smoothly you can hear audio moving closer to or away from it.
Once you have made the adjustments, you can hear the sounds from your favorite track, which could be louder or softer depending upon the listening range’s proximity. Your car’s shape and size can also determine how you will hear your track from different speakers and get different levels of clarity and
An equalizer setting enables you to fine-tune sound precisely, and all sounds at some frequency appear perfectly “equalized” to the human ear. These settings are not only found in cars, they are also available in Spotify, and you can change settings for your headphone by using your mobile phone if you do not use the Spotify app.
Why Need Audio Equalizer Setting For Car?
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Covers Up The Flaws Of Different Audio Systems
An audio equalizer setting can help smooth out the hardware peculiarities by turning standard sound quality into exceptional sound quality. However, it can only boost the available audio quality of car speakers, which can either be good or bad.
This cannot improve an already flawed car speaker setup that excessively compresses audio quality. Thus, equalizer settings in a car can boost audio quality, but that will depend on the quality of the audio system, file compression type (WAV, MP3, AAC, FLAC), or audio type.
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Modifies Sound As Per Your Preference
Equalizer settings can boost the audio quality as desired by lowering the treble and enhancing the bass, which develops an attractive and balanced sound. It can give you more control over bass or treble tuning, enabling you to tweak sound frequencies by shifting focus on different instruments, vocals, or certain song pieces.
For example, while listening to podcasts, the speech requires more focus, so you tweak up its frequency more than other audio frequencies. This will help you clearly listen to what the podcaster is saying without missing out on any details. You can also reduce the force of imperfect frequencies that can cause ear problems.
Types Of Equalizer
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Parametric Equalizer
It is a filter that attempts to boost the frequency spectrum and offers continuous control over the frequency content of the audio signals in the track. This frequency content consists of around 3 to 7 frequency bands.
It can let you control bandwidth, exact frequency, and boosting or cutting decibels, which can provide more precision while improving the overall sound quality. You can choose a center or main frequency level, based on which you can tweak above or below certain frequency bands.
For example, if the center frequency is set at 25 Hz, the parametric equalizer can be tweaked below at 15 Hz and 20 Hz and above at 30 Hz and 35 Hz, and so on.
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Graphic Equalizer
It is an electronic program that includes separate controlling of the quality of frequency bands in a given audio signal. It has a slider control for each different band of the frequency spectrum. This slider controller can attenuate or boost a particular frequency by sliding up or down while keeping it in the middle delivering a neutral response.
These equalizer layouts can cut problematic frequencies out of a track. This can be done by holding and rolling out the low end by pulling the gain down through the sliders available below that frequency range. Thus, it allows for gaining control over a fixed set of frequencies with a fixed bandwidth.
What Is The Best Setting For The Equalizer?
The best equalizer setting for your car is the neutral one because it will give you the real aspect of the song you will play on your car’s stereo. You can also tweak the settings depending on various aspects, like the type of music, speaker setup, car, or personal preferences. Different music genres focus on the other frequency spectrum.
For example, rap has a more detailed sub-bass response than rock or metal. Moreover, ears determine the appropriate area of the frequency spectrum that requires a boost or attenuation per your listening needs. Thus, I have tried to make things easy for you by describing equalizer settings for different music genres that will help you better understand them for your personal use.
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Best Setting For EDM
Electronic dance music, or EDM, involves a wide range of electronic music subgenres, like house, Brazilian bass, drum and bass, and deep house. They contain a “natural electronic nature,” to the sound of it.
For example, if you are listening to the hip-hop sub-genre, you can experience a lot of content at the low end because of the sound of the kick drum. Thus, you should enhance its low frequency to some degree to feel the deep bass.
When listening to the rapper’s verse, you can enhance the highs to enrich and brighten the sound quality. You can try boosting the mids and highs by +2 and +4 to get the hip-hop music kick that you desire.
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Best Setting For Rock And Metal
Rock music was developed in the 1950s, followed by the introduction of metal as its sub-genre in the 1960s. This music has a guitar as its centerpiece instrument. They hold their content in the middle-frequency spectrum from 500Hz-4kHz. Thus, you should try to consider elevating the mid-range.
Bass here secondary importance here, while boosting the high to some level. The equalizer should keep the bass remained unchanged at 0 while boosting mids by +4, and highs by +2.
Thus, if you are a dedicated fan of the metal bands like Motley Crew or Poison, or thrash metal rockers like Metallica or Pantera, you now know how to tweak your car audio equalizer to get the most out of your sound listening experience.
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Best Setting For Bass Heavy Music Genres
Audiophiles or casual listeners can find it a bit difficult to get the best EQ setting for the bass-heavy music genre as it has to be crisp and not sound muddy. The bass range exists between 20 Hz and 200 Hz, and to maximize bass, you should tweak and boost the decibels in this range. Boost the bass for this type of music genre as it contains a lot of content in the low-range frequencies from instruments like bass synthesizers.
Pop music includes high-mid frequencies as it has heavy vocals between 1500 Hz and 4 kHz. Experiment with various settings as pop music works by trial and error and choose what best suits your ear.
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Best Setting For General Listening
General listening requires a more neutral frequency range, so you should believe what your ears hear by keeping the frequency parameters unchanged. Play the track and focus on the areas where you would like to boost frequencies or which frequencies you wish to reduce the effect or attenuate.
Equalizer Parameters
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Low-Pass Filter
It is a type of band setting that appears on the equalizer and is positioned on the right of its frequency spectrum. When LPF is applied, it creates a wall between the highest and the lowest frequency of the spectrum.
This cut shows the cut in frequency sloping down to the right, restricting all the frequencies above this cut and allowing the ones falling in the range below this desired frequency. You can use this filter on songs or tracks that are too bright and loud because they have too many highs above 16 kHz.
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High Pass Filter
It is an EQ curve that filters out low-frequency sounds and allows all the high-frequency sounds to freely pass through the audio signals. A high-pass filter attenuates or reduces the amplitude of low-frequency signals falling below the desired frequency.
This setting could be useful for booming audio quality that causes car interiors to rattle or move and is helpful for frequencies above 50 Hz. These filters clean up low-frequency noise and remove the humming sound while highlighting high-frequency audio signals.
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High Shelf Filter
This filter can help you boost or attenuate high frequency in audio signals by instantaneously taming shrill tones by cutting or clearing up muddy vocals by shaping the sound quality. For instance, setting a high shelf at 6kHZ to +3dB will enhance all audio signals above 6kHZ by 3dB will add more brightness and air to your track.
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Low Shelf Filter
This filter will either enhance the amplitude or frequency or cut it beyond a specific lower frequency range that appears like a shelf in the low end displayed on the equalizer. It will function like that in a low-pass filter but less aggressively. For example, applying a low shelf at 190 Hz and setting it to -3 dB will cause all frequencies below 190 to be attenuated by -3 dB.
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Bell Curve Filter
It’s a bell-curved equalizer that is used for mid-range frequencies. This EQ filter increases or decreases frequency ranges around a fixed frequency point. They can boost or reduce the frequency with utmost precision and are also considered versatile filters.
Tips: Best Equalizer Settings For Car Audio, Bass, Mid, And Treble
- Adjust subwoofer levels accordingly. Keep the bass good enough for a low-end response and not too high that it can overpower other sound frequencies.
- Listen to the track at different volumes to get the perfect listening level. This will help you control the bass boost and treble settings.
- Tweak sounds as per your preference using the built-in equalizers.
- Upgrade your car speakers to enhance the sound quality of the rear and front speakers of your car if you wish to further boost the sound quality of your speakers.
Conclusion
By now, you might have understood that best equalizer settings could vary from genre to genre and person to person. When you know how exactly you can customize those EQ settings, you can make the best out of the type of music you like.
For very specific settings, I recommend you visit the car stereo manufacturer’s website and learn more about specific frequencies so that you can precisely customize the equalizer settings and enjoy the music just like you like it to be.
Frequently Asked Questions/FAQs
No, the treble should be a little higher than the bass. However, if you are listening to hip-hop, EDM, or pop, then you can keep treble and bass equal.
It states the band, referred to as “hertz,” available at 16 kHz on the frequency spectrum. The numbers on the equalizer express the frequency, which is illustrated as bass (32, 64, 125), treble (4, 8, 16), and mid-range (250, 500, 1 kHz).
The bass range falls between 20 and 200 Hz. If you wish to maximize your bass setting for your music, try adjusting the equalizer between 20 and 200 Hz and boosting the decibels within this range. The best bass frequency is 50–80 Hz, which will make your audio more deep and powerful.