Discover the Ultimate Settings for Your Equalizer

While it’s true that the best equalizer settings are very subjective and really are open to individual tastes, the fundamental properties of sound remain constant for all of us.

This means that the starting point settings below will sound great for 99% of the people listening. For the other 1%, they can take these and slightly tweak them for their personal preferences.

Equalization is there to be used to compensate for small or large rooms, cheaper kit, speakers/headphones/earbuds, and mostly personal preference.

So have at it, and try them out to find your best set.

Best Settings for Equalizer

You can jump straight to the section or genre you need using the table of contents. So if you want settings for Rock Music jump to that section and use the settings detailed there.

Apart from the type of music groupings we also have some more obscure sections such as the best setting for the equalizer in the car, and the best equalizer settings for bass.

Again, these are available in the table of contents.

If you want to know a little more about how equalizers work then see the section at the end of this article.

Fine-tuning your audio whether, for movies, music or gaming will greatly add to the realism and your enjoyment of the media.

We’ll explain the settings on a 10-band equalizer basis.

So I’ll give the figures at :

32Hz, 63Hz, 125Hz, 250Hz, 500Hz, 1kHz, 2kHz, 4kHz, 8kHz, and 16kHz.

Best Equalizer Settings For Music

Best Equalizer Settings For Alternative Rock

Best Equalizer Settings For Bass Music

Best Equalizer Settings For Blues Music

Best Equalizer Settings For Classical Music/Piano

Classical pieces and piano share a wide range of frequencies so this set can be applied equally to both.

Best Equalizer Settings For Celtic/Soft Music

Best Equalizer Settings For Dubstep

Best Equalizer Settings For Electronic Edm Music

Best Equalizer Settings For Folk Music

Best Equalizer Settings For Heavy Metal

Best Equalizer Settings For Hip Hop

Best Equalizer Settings For House Music

Best Equalizer Settings For Jazz Music

Best Equalizer Settings For Pop Music

Best Equalizer Settings For R&b Rhythm And Blues

Best Equalizer Settings For Reggae

Best Equalizer Settings For Rock Music

General Music

Best Equalizer Settings For The PC

There are many ways to get the sound out of your PC. Whether you’re using some Logitech active speakers or a Bluetooth headset the sound you hear will almost always be improved by using an equalizer.

If you’re using RealTek equipment luckily you will already have access to the RealTek equalizer.

To get to it simply open your control panel and click on the Realtek HD Audio Manager. Now you can experiment with all the presets it offers or use the 10-band equalizer. Custom defaults can be saved for later use if needed.

Best Equalizer Settings For Gaming

This is probably one of the more tricky areas to advise any set details on. PC sound output devices differ considerably between manufacturers and even between models from the same manufacturer.

Most games come with a model audio setup. The best advice I can give is to load that into your rig and customize it using the manufacturer’s settings as a good starting point.

Best Equalizer Settings For Bass

Best Equalizer Settings For Bass And Clarity

Best Equalizer Settings For Treble

Best Equalizer Settings For Voice

Best Equalizer Settings For Vocals/Dialogue/Voice Clarity/Speech/Podcasts/Audiobooks

Best Equalizer Settings For Tv

Best Equalizer Settings For Watching Movies

Best Equalizer Settings For Home Theatre

This is so dependent on room shape and size that any advice I give would only suit a small percentage of folks. So I’ll point you to a great video on the subject. Warning – this video is technical.

Best Equalizer Settings For Instruments

Best Equalizer Settings For Acoustic Guitar

What is an Equalizer

An equalizer is an audio processing unit that takes a signal from some audio device, that could be a head unit of a CD player, a streaming unit, or even a PC sound card.

This signal can then be modified to increase or decrease set ranges of frequencies in the signal. These ranges are closely associated with the elements (such as voice or instruments) that make up a tune or song.

For example, vocals will have a range, as will bass guitar, drums and other instruments. These ranges can and do overlap.

The whole range covers approximately 20Hz to 20KHz. Anything outside these ranges will be almost impossible to hear by humans.

So in general if we take it from the lowest to the highest ranges they will map to:

20Hz-60Hz

Very low frequencies in the sub-bass range. This is where the deepest-sounding instruments live. They are more felt in the chest than heard. Bass guitars (lower limit around 40Hz), some synthesizers, and the kick drum are predominant here.

60Hz-250Hz

These are the bass frequencies and they can be used to add a little warmth into the sound. Again bass and rhythm section instruments play in this range. Too little boost in this range and the overall sound can be thin.

250Hz – 500Hz

This range can be used to round out the overall sound of the track and reduce that tinny sound that you can sometimes get. If you have a small set of speakers, boosting this range can sometimes help. Try boosting right around the 300Hz mark to bring out the bass.

500Hz – 2kHz

Most instruments have a part of their out put sitting in this range. It’s fundamental to a good output that you set this particular range correctly.

2kHz – 4kHz

The human ear is highly tuned for this particular range. We can pick it out very easily from other background noise. This is the range where most vocals live. But so do the drums, guitar and keyboards. It’s a very crowded space on the spectrum. Too much boost in this range especially around 300kHz can lead to what is called “listening fatigue” so use it sparingly.

4kHz – 6kHz

Most home equipment has the treble homed in on this range. When you adjust the treble this is the range that will be altered. Boost at your peril as the sound can become rasping very quickly.

6kHz – 20 kHz

Most people won’t be able to hear the full extent of this range. Further, most instruments won’t be able to get near the upper end of this range. There is usually no need to go above 12kHz when altering your settings. At this level the sound can become brighter and etheral but overindulge and you will increase hiss on the track. Many people talk of this range adding “sparkle” to the mix.

Now you know where some of the instrument ranges are you can play around with boosting certain elements of your playlists and muting down some others, to your tastes.

Conclusion

I hope I’ve given you the confidence to try and find your own best settings for your equalizer perhaps based off some of my starter sets. I hope you’ve found this useful.

I will continue to update this article when I’ve time to include more examples.