EQ, audiophiles look away now!

[Staresyj]

I’m in my 50’s and with some hearing loss the highs in music can be a little flat for me. I’ve had the WiiM Pro for a couple of weeks and yesterday I thought I’d try the EQ function. For me, this has transformed the sound I hear to elevation status. Using treble booster, I hear the tiniest cymbal sweeps and the crack of the snare drum. What I am a bit puzzled about is how my external DAC deals with the EQ mode on?! I’m using optical/coax out of the Wiim to the DAC and then AMP to speakers. The DAC still displays the bitrate from the original stream hitting the WiiM, but the sound from the speakers is for me at least, superb. So what is the DAC converting to analogue? Presumably, the original digital signal washed by the EQ and then converted? I don’t understand it much but I do love the sound. If I turn off EQ now on the DAC, the music is flat and I lose my highs (unless adjusted with tone control on AMP)

 

[DryTortuga]

You may be interested in one of these pieces of Schiit…

Schiit Audio: Audio Products Designed and Built in Texas and California

www.schiit.com

 

[Brantome]

At the end of the day, play it as you like it in the privacy of your own home

I wear hearing aids, I’m older than you, I don’t have an ideal listening room but I do have a good amp and speakers. Without EQ, my WiiM can sound thin and tinny: with EQ slightly boosting the low frequencies and lowering the higher frequencies, the sound is more full bodied and more pleasant to listen to.

Given the wish for PEQ, Dirac etc that some frequently mention, tuning the sound to fit your environment and hearing seems de rigueur rather than to be frowned upon, and if simple EQ does that for you, who’s to complain?

 

[Klipscher]

I’m in my 50’s and with some hearing loss the highs in music can be a little flat for me. I’ve had the WiiM Pro for a couple of weeks and yesterday I thought I’d try the EQ function. For me, this has transformed the sound I hear to elevation status. Using treble booster, I hear the tiniest cymbal sweeps and the crack of the snare drum. What I am a bit puzzled about is how my external DAC deals with the EQ mode on?! I’m using optical/coax out of the Wiim to the DAC and then AMP to speakers. The DAC still displays the bitrate from the original stream hitting the WiiM, but the sound from the speakers is for me at least, superb. So what is the DAC converting to analogue? Presumably, the original digital signal washed by the EQ and then converted? I don’t understand it much but I do love the sound. If I turn off EQ now on the DAC, the music is flat and I lose my highs (unless adjusted with tone control on AMP)

The dac used with the wiim devices is Burr-Brown PCM5121 and my understanding is if using EQ or having fixed volume off is no longer bit perfect output.

The Burr-Brown PCM5121 DAC has a Sampling rate (Max) (kHz)384 the thing I’m not sure about if when in bit perfect mode is if it’s bypassing the built in dac? Wish there was an option to turn off built in WiiM dac.
Hopefully someone that understands better how the WiiM dac is is being utilized will chime in

Sounds like you just like the sound of the Burr-Brown chip over the chip in external dac.

 

[DryTortuga]

I think EQ would be applied in the digital domain before hitting external or internal DAC. The Schiit products are good ol’ analog multiple band tone controls.

 

[Brantome]

The dac used with the wiim devices is Burr-Brown PCM5121 and my understanding is if using EQ or having fixed volume off is no longer bit perfect output.

The Burr-Brown PCM5121 DAC has a Sampling rate (Max) (kHz)384 the thing I’m not sure about if when in bit perfect mode is if it’s bypassing the built in dac? Wish there was an option to turn off built in WiiM dac.
Hopefully someone that understands better how the WiiM dac is is being utilized will chime in

Sounds like you just like the sound of the Burr-Brown chip over the chip in external dac.

Yes, using EQ means that the output is no longer bit perfect, but surely if you’re using the digital output from the WiIM, you’re not employing its internal DAC in any digital to analog conversion and that’s where you’d more often hear a difference between different outboard DACs? It would then follow that using the digital outputs, whether bit perfect or not, bypasses the WiiM’s internal DAC since no conversion to analog has taken place.

 

[onlyoneme]

I think EQ would be applied in the digital domain before hitting external or internal DAC. The Schiit products are good ol’ analog multiple band tone controls.

EQ is applied in the digital domain indeed. With a DRC limiter and huge amount of distortions for signals above -1.2 dBFS.

 

[DryTortuga]

And that’s why I recommend a non digital EQ of some kind like the Schiit Loki/Lokius products. Plus you can apply EQ to everything by putting it in the analog path between pre and amp.

 

[Staresyj]

You may be interested in one of these pieces of Schiit…

Schiit Audio: Audio Products Designed and Built in Texas and California

www.schiit.com

Nice. Where would sit in the hifi chain?

 

[Staresyj]

At the end of the day, play it as you like it in the privacy of your own home

I wear hearing aids, I’m older than you, I don’t have an ideal listening room but I do have a good amp and speakers. Without EQ, my WiiM can sound thin and tinny: with EQ slightly boosting the low frequencies and lowering the higher frequencies, the sound is more full bodied and more pleasant to listen to.

Given the wish for PEQ, Dirac etc that some frequently mention, tuning the sound to fit your environment and hearing seems de rigueur rather than to be frowned upon, and if simple EQ does that for you, who’s to complain?

100% agree, just wish more people were honest with their ears and mind and not blindsided by what they think they should do! 99.9% of humans over the age of 15 have hearing defects, no £10k amp and speaker package is going to fix that!

 

[Staresyj]

The dac used with the wiim devices is Burr-Brown PCM5121 and my understanding is if using EQ or having fixed volume off is no longer bit perfect output.

The Burr-Brown PCM5121 DAC has a Sampling rate (Max) (kHz)384 the thing I’m not sure about if when in bit perfect mode is if it’s bypassing the built in dac? Wish there was an option to turn off built in WiiM dac.
Hopefully someone that understands better how the WiiM dac is is being utilized will chime in

Sounds like you just like the sound of the Burr-Brown chip over the chip in external dac.

You know what, tomorrow, I’m going to take the external DAC out of the route to the amp and speakers and see what the WiiM DAC does in its own!

 

[DryTortuga]

Nice. Where would sit in the hifi chain?

Ideally between a pre-amp and an amp. That would apply EQ to everything. Otherwise if using an integrated amp, between DAC analog out and amp input.

 

[DryTortuga]

What kind of DAC do you have?

 

[Staresyj]

The dac used with the wiim devices is Burr-Brown PCM5121 and my understanding is if using EQ or having fixed volume off is no longer bit perfect output.

The Burr-Brown PCM5121 DAC has a Sampling rate (Max) (kHz)384 the thing I’m not sure about if when in bit perfect mode is if it’s bypassing the built in dac? Wish there was an option to turn off built in WiiM dac.
Hopefully someone that understands better how the WiiM dac is is being utilized will chime in

Sounds like you just like the sound of the Burr-Brown chip over the chip in external dac.

That would be an RCA out the same as the external DAC so in theory nothing dramatic change in the control chain?

 

[Staresyj]

What kind of DAC do you have?

It’s the Topping e30ii. I don’t care much for it and the 6 filter option is I think messing with sound?

 

[WiimFan]

I started playing with the EQ settings using Fixed volume output via Toslink to external SMSL DO200 wtih ES9068AS DAC chip capable of decoding and rendering MQA.

In this scenario, Wiim Pro downsamples the EQ'ed track to 96 kHz PCM even though the MQA flac is 192 kHz.

It kills the "spaciousness" of the track a bit, but the EQ does address the deficiencies in the higher range. It's so hard to decide which is a better experience. Anyone else hearing the same difference?

 

[DryTortuga]

So that AKM in your E30 is like way,way,way better than the DAC inside mini or pro. Don’t do it. Try filter 4 or 5 on your E30.

 

[DryTortuga]

Those filters are in every delta/sigma DAC - manufacturers determine whether to implement filter choices on the chip to the user or not.

 

[Staresyj]

Those filters are in every delta/sigma DAC - manufacturers determine whether to implement filter choices on the chip to the user or not.

I currently using the filter 1 on the Topping (hear me out) to me, it is wider and more spacious. I’ve found 4 to be a bit flat? Maybe that bias ?

 

[Staresyj]

I started playing with the EQ settings using Fixed volume output via Toslink to external SMSL DO200 wtih ES9068AS DAC chip capable of decoding and rendering MQA.

In this scenario, Wiim Pro downsamples the EQ'ed track to 96 kHz PCM even though the MQA flac is 192 kHz.

It kills the "spaciousness" of the track a bit, but the EQ does address the deficiencies in the higher range. It's so hard to decide which is a better experience. Anyone else hearing the same difference?

I’m not using MQA files, purely Qobuz and I haven’t seen any downsampling on my Topping DAC readout when engaging EQ on the WiiM? 192 stays at 192