Which REW equalizer to choose

[FargateOne]

Hello
it is a bit a personnal question but, it may interest all Rotel receivers or preamps owners here. My Rotel has the followings settings available to eq the fr response of each channels:

BAND 1 Freq : 20Hz - 80Hz, 1Hz Step Default 40 Hz
BAND 2 Freq: 20Hz - 80Hz, 1Hz Step Default 60 Hz
BAND 3 Freq: 81Hz - 140Hz, 1Hz Step Default 100 Hz
BAND 4 Freq: 81Hz - 140Hz, 1Hz Step Default 120 Hz
BAND 5 Freq: 141Hz - 200Hz, 1Hz Step Default 160 Hz
BAND 6 Freq: 1110Hz - 1550 Hz, 10Hz Step Default 1300 Hz
BAND 7 Freq: 1560Hz - 2000 Hz, 10Hz Step Default 1750 Hz
BAND 8 Freq: 2.1kHz - 8kHz, 100Hz Step Default 4k Hz
BAND 9 Freq: 8.1kHz - 14kHz, 100Hz Step Default 10k Hz
BAND 10 Freq: 14.1kHz - 20kHz, 100Hz Step Default 16k Hz

Q : 1 - 24 by 1.0 steps (1,2,3,,...

Gain : -12dB - 0 - +3dB by 1.0 steps

Which REW equalizer should I choose ? If none are close enough , is using generic and reduce the number of filter from 20 to 10 a good idea?

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

For equalizers that REW does not support, it is best to use pink noise and adjust the filters in real time.

Regards,
Wayne

 

[FargateOne]

For equalizers that REW does not support, it is best to use pink noise and adjust the filters in real time.

Regards,
Wayne

Oy! But what when the receiver cut the sound when I open the OSM to get the filters settings of the receiver?

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Use pink noise generated by REW - that should work.

Regards,
Wayne

 

[Gizmo_Ger]

I think what @FargateOne meant is when switching to On Screen Menu it cuts off the audio. So he won´t to able to output pink noise anymore to live measure.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I think in this case the best solution is to measure your response and then make adjustments in the Rotel unit based on the measurement... then remeasure ... repeat until you get the best response you can get. It may take a lot of trial and error. REW can give you recommendations that should be fairly close to your filter options.

 

[FargateOne]

I think in this case the best solution is to measure your response and then make adjustments in the Rotel unit based on the measurement... then remeasure ... repeat until you get the best response you can get. It may take a lot of trial and error. REW can give you recommendations that should be fairly close to your filter options.

...or to ask to THE all mighty REW's oracle John if, in his great wisdom, he could consider the possibility to add a new choice in his marvelous software! (did I say so politely!!)

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

I think what @FargateOne meant is when switching to On Screen Menu it cuts off the audio. So he won´t to able to output pink noise anymore to live measure.

I was thinking he meant it would stop the receiver's internal test signal. If bringing up the OSM shuts down audio from the inputs - wow, what a strange thing...

Fargate, John has never shown any inclination to add any receivers to REW. There are just too many of them on the market to make that feasible, especially when you consider discontinued models.

Regards,
Wayne

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I was thinking he meant it would stop the receiver's internal test signal. If bringing up the OSM shuts down audio from the inputs - wow, what a strange thing...

I suppose this is common... my NAD T758 and NAD M17 do the same thing.

 

[FargateOne]

I suppose this is common... my NAD T758 and NAD M17 do the same thing.

Thanks for the information. Rotel is knowned for their quality products but it doesn't produce thousands and thousands units like Marantz, Yamaha or others Denon of this wolrd. I suppose that the choice they made are justifies for some reason. What I was hoping to know here is : is it possible to find the more suitable equalizer in the selection or in other words which one has the characteristics that look like the most at the eq I have. I am completly ignorant of the science behing those equalizers. Of course The "generic" is not there for the fun of it, I know. But for me it seems far away of what I have in my receiver. So I thought, probably wrongly, that miniDsp or nanoAvr would be a better choice for my needs.?

 

[Sonnie Parker]

What you have is 10 parametric EQ bands... and should be enough to do a fairly decent job of at least taking care of the major peaks. REW can generate filter suggestions for you, then you can enter some or all of the suggestions, run REW again and if you didn't use all of them, you can enter more.

 

[FargateOne]

So to get Rew to generate filter suggestions, to select "generic" or "nanoAvr" makes no difference. Am I correct to say that I would choose "generic" and uncheck 10 filters among the 20 filters available?

 

[ATWarren]

Many here have offered excellent advice. I'll throw in a couple of points a lot of which echos what has already been said. So I'm not really offering anything new. Just presented in a different context.

I EQ on a different platform but have similar challenges. Here is my workflow. I found an EQ in REW very similar to mine. Generic works in this case. I turned off the additional filters I don't have. Meaning I have 6 parametric filter options on my unit. Generic has 20 of course. So I disable 14 filters (uncheck in the EQ Filter dialog box). I have REW make the automated suggestions (Match Response to Target). Since there are only 6 on REW does a great job and makes it's adjustments based upon my limitations. From there I can enter the parameters into my EQ and repeat. If I want to take it a little further and often do. I will manually tweak the filters based upon the measured curve. Then have REW "Optimize Gains, Qs and Frequencies". After my Predicted curve looks as close as possible to my Target, again based upon my systems limitations. I will enter those filters into the EQ and run another sweep to confirm. I can say this tool is incredible and does a fantastic job there.

There is one thing you need to be aware of. There are different types of ways EQ's process their Q values. So you should do some loopback testing after applying some Q values to your EQ to make certain the one you have selected in REW is on the same Q model formula. That said, it's why there aren't 1,000s of EQ's to choose from in REW. The job to test each EQ would be a full time effort for a team of people. Test and determine the best Q match and use the above workflow and you will have a great results. Hope this helps

 

[Sonnie Parker]

And there you have it... spelled out nicely for you... thanks ATWarren and welcome to AV NIRVANA.

 

[FargateOne]

Many here have offered excellent advice. (...)

There are different types of ways EQ's process their Q values. So you should do some loopback testing after applying some Q values to your EQ to make certain the one you have selected in REW is on the same Q model formula.

Ok, I tried to figure it out how to do that. I choose left speaker, set to large and put 4 filters at 180Hz peak with -4dB gain and did the same at 42 Hz peak with the same filters but with -10dB gain. (mdat file attached). Then I put the filters in one equalizer in REW and compare the predicted curve with the result. I concluded that "generic" works like a charm. Am I correct?