Out of the box, they sound absolutely terrible. The bass boost is way over done, the Harman target is far too shouty in the 2.5 to 4 KHz range, and worst of all, the ENTIRE treble region is an absolute MESS! I have no idea what anyone who praises these things is smoking. I guess that just shows how bad the market is.
After messing around with it several times over the course of a few days, these are my current settings in Poweramp Equalizer. It’s still far from ideal, as I’ve been unable to achieve a flattish response (the 6 to 9 KHz region is especially difficult!). This isn’t even remotely close to anything perfect. However, it’s MUCH better than it was! Definitely a good starting point with these Buds2 Pros. Turning the EQ on and off is a night and day difference. On is listenable, and off is trash. Oh, and I’ve already tried other EQ solutions and settings to no avail. This is the only decent solution I’ve found so far. And rather than making two or more separate presets for ANC, passive, ambient, etc., I’m simply trying to make one profile work well enough with all of them for the time being.
I realize that people’s ear canals are different and others may not hear what I hear. So, please use frequency sweeps and pink noise to make adjustments. Try these settings, tell me what you think, and if you can improve upon this, please do so and share. If anyone can point me to something similar to what I have here that’s already been perfected somehow, please share that with me. Thank you!
Poweramp Equalizer settings:
Low Pass Gain: -8.0 Q: 0.40 Freq: 100
Peaking Band Gain: -6.0 Q: 1.20 Freq: 3.00K
Peaking Band Gain: 1.2 Q: 8.00 Freq: 5.40K
Peaking Band Gain: -12.0 Q: 6.00 Freq: 7.20K
Peaking Band Gain: 10.0 Q: 5.00 Freq: 8.5K
Peaking Band Gain: 3.0 Q: 4.00 Freq: 9.6K
Peaking Band Gain: -15.0 Q: 5.00 Freq: 11.0K
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I think garbage is a bit strong… I do agree it’s a little shouty so I lower it by 2-3db but the bass is definitely not overdone. IMO the tuning is especially good for low volume listening.
Could you export the file pls thx!
Sure! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g9IMTKS8qgaexfq4VUlPPOGWpWKe7UkU/view?usp=drivesdk
Let me know if that works for you.
I’ve also updated yesterday’s settings this morning and edited my first post. For whatever reason, I seem to be getting slightly different results each day, and I’m basically changing things back and forth at this point.
Let me know what you think.
Happy listening!
Not that I think the buds 2 is the greatest thing I’ve ever heard, but this is why I dislike objectivists lol. Like goddamn not everyone likes IEF neutral, which I genuinely don’t think is neutral, and I wouldn’t call the default trash. Like I would absolutely not lower the bass of the buds 2. If anything I think the bass response is barely in passing grade as is. And when you cut out the bass to that extent I’m not surprised that you find the 3K peak shouty.
Genuinely every IEM with that 3K dip I’ve heard have always sounded more boring imo.
I thought power amp EQ could only import auto EQ files or adjust fixed sliders.
Nah, most things are adjustable, including the number and frequencies of the graphic EQ bands. And there’s parametric EQ.
My main complaints about Poweramp Equalizer are that it doesn’t work with many of the apps I use, and the band pass parametric function doesn’t allow you to specify a start and stop frequency with adjustable Q on both sides, so the band pass is really just a less narrow version of the peaking band function.
Oh, now I remember what my problem with Poweramp was. That is doesn’t work with Foobar. I downloaded the Poweramp player but I got annoyed pretty quickly with the lack of crossfeed (Meier crossfeed in Foobar is great) so now I need to see if I can figure out how to turn on crossfeed or add it to Poweramp.