There is no fucking way that anyone can sum this shit all up in a simple sentence like that, which would apply to every situation.
Different headphones and speakers have different frequency response. If you’re using speakers, the acoustics of the room can have a large effect as well. Are we supposed to go out and buy the same equipment the person mastering used? Build a specific room layout for the specific acoustics intended per track? What if the person mastering already took responses of different equipment and rooms into account? It’s not like you get “intended listening guidance” notes with most music.
Personally, if I can tune the EQ towards a flat response graph for my particular headphones I will (Poweramp for Android has these presets built in for a ton of headphones, but you have to apply them yourself), otherwise I don’t fuck with it unless some section sounds particularly blown out. My car overenphasizes bass, which is fun most of the time, but I turn it down for some tracks where it drowns out finer details.
Ultimately there’s a shit ton that is up to taste.
I had the hunch that it might be so. Anyway, Wavelet applies the eq systemwide, for free, and doesn’t have any shady permissions. (It also switches between presets for different headphones automatically if you have several configured.)
There is no fucking way that anyone can sum this shit all up in a simple sentence like that, which would apply to every situation.
Different headphones and speakers have different frequency response. If you’re using speakers, the acoustics of the room can have a large effect as well. Are we supposed to go out and buy the same equipment the person mastering used? Build a specific room layout for the specific acoustics intended per track? What if the person mastering already took responses of different equipment and rooms into account? It’s not like you get “intended listening guidance” notes with most music.
Personally, if I can tune the EQ towards a flat response graph for my particular headphones I will (Poweramp for Android has these presets built in for a ton of headphones, but you have to apply them yourself), otherwise I don’t fuck with it unless some section sounds particularly blown out. My car overenphasizes bass, which is fun most of the time, but I turn it down for some tracks where it drowns out finer details.
Ultimately there’s a shit ton that is up to taste.
You might want to take a look at AutoEq and apps that support its exports (namely Wavelet for Android).
Great callout! That’s where the audio player app I use, PowerAmp, gets its presets! I was blanking on the source of them when I made that comment.
I had the hunch that it might be so. Anyway, Wavelet applies the eq systemwide, for free, and doesn’t have any shady permissions. (It also switches between presets for different headphones automatically if you have several configured.)