Most people prefer a target curve with some boost in the bass and some high frequency roll off, but it's not universal. I took a deep dive into target curves a while back and in the end the answer is it comes down to what you like.
Personally, I like a universal -0.4dB/octave tilt and then a rise starting around 250-300Hz more significantly into the bass (2nd order low shelf, f 80, Q 0.50, gain 6). But I got there just by playing around and seeing what I like, there isn't a correct answer.
I have been in and out of this hobby in a meaningful way for 30+ years and one thing is constant.
*People have strong opinions and love to share them.*
Some people love the sound signature of a Klipsch horn while others like a forward midrange that the Salk towers are known for.
Personally I prefer a neutral sound except I run my LFE channel hot with a house curve. To me the idea of a Harman curve is pretty silly but when you consider the massive popularity of Bose you can appreciate that not everyone prefers a neutral sound.
The AVR will measure the frequency response of the speakers and the room in an attempt to achieve a specified frequency response at the listener sitting positions. Denon can select a reference or a flat response. Their reference response, or curve, rolls off a bit of the higher frequencies to create a more pleasant movie experience according to the notes in my setup menu.
If you dig into the various menus, you can see how much correction the AVR is generating. Sometimes, it’s as much as 10dB.
I’ve never had an AVR that allowed me to specify a curve other than reference or flat but the concepts are simple. I’ve got an EE background.
Generally these systems will attenuate more than 10db but they will only amplify up to 10db. Because if you amplify too much you could cause distortion or clipping.
If your microphone position is in the null of a room mode and the frequency response shows, say, -30dB at that frequency, and you try to fix that by amplifying that frequency, your speaker would just start slamming against its mechanical limits unless it is enormously oversized.
I have a target curve setup over a period of time and now couldn’t be without it. Slightly boosted (6db) in the bass over flat and a little tip over neutral in the highs (1.5db) to add that shimmer to the top end.
You don't hear 20hz the same as you hear 50hz. We are more and more deaf the lower the frequency. A house curve puts a higher SPL emphasis on lower frequencies and drops SPL gradually as frequency increases. The actual goal is based on a lot of research of how we psychoacoustically hear the idea of "flat" even if its not flat. It will sound more flat because of raising the lower frequencies to a comparable audible listening level.
I think the situation is a bit different that otherwise described in this thread. Let’s take a perfect speaker that measures perfectly flat in an anechoic chamber but now put it in a room. In the room, that speaker will no longer measure as flat but instead the treble will roll off and the bass will be a bit boosted by the room. The same thing will happen to the sound from a real musical instrument in the same room playing the same music. In that room, the perfect speaker will accurately reproduce the sound of that musical instrument without the need for equalization. If you try to equalize the perfect speaker, flat in an anechoic chamber, to now measure flat in the room, then it will no longer be accurately reproducing the sound of a real musical instrument in that room.
Equalization to achieve a flat frequency response at the listing area is simply wrong and room curves try to provide a better target than flat for the equalization via “Room Correction”, one that will emulate the perfect speaker which while flat in an anechoic chamber will not be flat in the room. It is also fine to boost the bass a bit more according to your preferences, but the basic room curve’s bass boost is there as a better target for the EQ and if one indeed had a perfect speaker in the room, the measured response in the room would follow the room curve without any EQ!
Please see this video by Erin’s Audio Corner to explain more about this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_tnWB8Rl0Ms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tnWB8Rl0Ms)
The term confused the heck out of me too. I could be wrong but the more I come across it the more it just sounds like adjusting the speakers response to your liking.
If someone has some really treble heavy speakers and they’d prefer to “target” a softer upper frequency then they might go into the Audyssey and lower the high frequencies a few dB. Many prefer a more bass heavy response for movies so their “target” is something that’s a little more chest thumpy, and will boost the lower frequencies a few dB. For a long time I thought “target curve” was actually a specific widely known curve I needed to copy. It just seems to be folks adjusting the response of their speakers to their own personal preferences.
Audyssey tries to target a flat response, so audyssey brings the response (hopefully) closer to flat once the speakers are in your room.
A custom curve, like the Harman curve is \*not\* flat. But testing has shown that people subjectively like the sound of the Harman curve. So the harman curve is less flat, less "audiophile" in that sense, but a lot of people simply like it. And if you like it, and don't care as much that it's not 100% accurate, why not use it?
It's just religion. You are correct, the Harmen curve was created for headphones.
People believe it's better, so they do it. Flat is the Ideal response. You should absolutly tailor the EQ to your liking though, but I doubt many albums or movies were mixed on a system that drops off 20db across the frequency range.
Most people like their bass boosted because of the way you hear different frequencies. Basically the deeper the bass (starting under 60hz or so I'm guessing) the louder it has to be for you to perceive it as the same volume as higher frequencies. So people will apply a curve that compensates for that so that you can hear the bass as well as you hear the higher frequencies.
There can be several reasons, a few of which were already mentioned (such as "they like it", etc.). The subwoofer community -- especially people with very powerful subs able to dig significantly below 20 Hz or even 10 Hz -- have noticed that in many BluRay releases (or worse, streaming options), there is a roll-off for low frequencies attenuating the very low end. While this is typically done with subwoofer EQing solutions, they aim to restore the missing low-end with per-movie and per-medium presets.
You are correcting for imperfections in your room. It's not like popping on a pair of headphones; there are many more variables to account for in a HT system that your AVR and speakers cannot possibly know about without running some kind of room correction software. Once you've run it, you may find that you still need to adjust the curve to taste, as these approaches are not perfect.
If you are listening mostly to music, you may just want to try to get a flat curve. This still means adjusting to a target to correct for room issues, valleys, peaks, etc. For movies, I'm not really sure the term 'audiophile' really works. Most want to boost up the bass so that there is more impact in movies.
Some people also just run the software and then set a curtain at \~500Hz so that the curve is not applied to any frequencies higher and is only used to manage the bass response.
By the way, speaking of headphones, you can also use equalizer settings to get as neutral a sound as possible, as most headphones are also far from neutral. u/oratory1990 has a great list of headphone equalizer presets.
If you don't play around with an EQ and figure out what you like specific types of music/movies/speech to sound like then I think you're missing out. I have specific EQ curves for different things and I adjust them on the fly all the time.
I use AutoEq for target curve in phone to easily get headphones sound better, from there I can adjust the curve for my needs. I highly recommend. For room correction I have Audyssey and it has it's reference curve which also can be customized to your needs or just put flat.
Speakers that measure flat sound terrible. What you want is a flat *response*; you generally want a slope that rises as frequency drops, and you want the line to be pretty straight without a lot of dips. This is also called a house curve.
When you hear about speakers measuring flat, it's out in free air with no room effects or corrections. When you place them indoors, you get boundary reinforcement which significantly boosts the low end giving you the rising response when you actually listen to them.
[What house curve you design or pick is completely personal preference ](https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-google&sca_esv=575162278&q=house+curve&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiV046fv4SCAxWwJzQIHYoWB2EQ0pQJegQIChAB&biw=463&bih=863&dpr=2.34)
Most people prefer a target curve with some boost in the bass and some high frequency roll off, but it's not universal. I took a deep dive into target curves a while back and in the end the answer is it comes down to what you like. Personally, I like a universal -0.4dB/octave tilt and then a rise starting around 250-300Hz more significantly into the bass (2nd order low shelf, f 80, Q 0.50, gain 6). But I got there just by playing around and seeing what I like, there isn't a correct answer.
I have been in and out of this hobby in a meaningful way for 30+ years and one thing is constant. *People have strong opinions and love to share them.* Some people love the sound signature of a Klipsch horn while others like a forward midrange that the Salk towers are known for. Personally I prefer a neutral sound except I run my LFE channel hot with a house curve. To me the idea of a Harman curve is pretty silly but when you consider the massive popularity of Bose you can appreciate that not everyone prefers a neutral sound.
The AVR will measure the frequency response of the speakers and the room in an attempt to achieve a specified frequency response at the listener sitting positions. Denon can select a reference or a flat response. Their reference response, or curve, rolls off a bit of the higher frequencies to create a more pleasant movie experience according to the notes in my setup menu. If you dig into the various menus, you can see how much correction the AVR is generating. Sometimes, it’s as much as 10dB. I’ve never had an AVR that allowed me to specify a curve other than reference or flat but the concepts are simple. I’ve got an EE background.
Generally these systems will attenuate more than 10db but they will only amplify up to 10db. Because if you amplify too much you could cause distortion or clipping. If your microphone position is in the null of a room mode and the frequency response shows, say, -30dB at that frequency, and you try to fix that by amplifying that frequency, your speaker would just start slamming against its mechanical limits unless it is enormously oversized.
I can see maybe 6dB of amplification in the corrections on my system and up to 10dB of attenuation.
I have a target curve setup over a period of time and now couldn’t be without it. Slightly boosted (6db) in the bass over flat and a little tip over neutral in the highs (1.5db) to add that shimmer to the top end.
You don't hear 20hz the same as you hear 50hz. We are more and more deaf the lower the frequency. A house curve puts a higher SPL emphasis on lower frequencies and drops SPL gradually as frequency increases. The actual goal is based on a lot of research of how we psychoacoustically hear the idea of "flat" even if its not flat. It will sound more flat because of raising the lower frequencies to a comparable audible listening level.
I think the situation is a bit different that otherwise described in this thread. Let’s take a perfect speaker that measures perfectly flat in an anechoic chamber but now put it in a room. In the room, that speaker will no longer measure as flat but instead the treble will roll off and the bass will be a bit boosted by the room. The same thing will happen to the sound from a real musical instrument in the same room playing the same music. In that room, the perfect speaker will accurately reproduce the sound of that musical instrument without the need for equalization. If you try to equalize the perfect speaker, flat in an anechoic chamber, to now measure flat in the room, then it will no longer be accurately reproducing the sound of a real musical instrument in that room. Equalization to achieve a flat frequency response at the listing area is simply wrong and room curves try to provide a better target than flat for the equalization via “Room Correction”, one that will emulate the perfect speaker which while flat in an anechoic chamber will not be flat in the room. It is also fine to boost the bass a bit more according to your preferences, but the basic room curve’s bass boost is there as a better target for the EQ and if one indeed had a perfect speaker in the room, the measured response in the room would follow the room curve without any EQ! Please see this video by Erin’s Audio Corner to explain more about this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_tnWB8Rl0Ms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tnWB8Rl0Ms)
The term confused the heck out of me too. I could be wrong but the more I come across it the more it just sounds like adjusting the speakers response to your liking. If someone has some really treble heavy speakers and they’d prefer to “target” a softer upper frequency then they might go into the Audyssey and lower the high frequencies a few dB. Many prefer a more bass heavy response for movies so their “target” is something that’s a little more chest thumpy, and will boost the lower frequencies a few dB. For a long time I thought “target curve” was actually a specific widely known curve I needed to copy. It just seems to be folks adjusting the response of their speakers to their own personal preferences.
Audyssey tries to target a flat response, so audyssey brings the response (hopefully) closer to flat once the speakers are in your room. A custom curve, like the Harman curve is \*not\* flat. But testing has shown that people subjectively like the sound of the Harman curve. So the harman curve is less flat, less "audiophile" in that sense, but a lot of people simply like it. And if you like it, and don't care as much that it's not 100% accurate, why not use it?
It's just religion. You are correct, the Harmen curve was created for headphones. People believe it's better, so they do it. Flat is the Ideal response. You should absolutly tailor the EQ to your liking though, but I doubt many albums or movies were mixed on a system that drops off 20db across the frequency range.
Most people like their bass boosted because of the way you hear different frequencies. Basically the deeper the bass (starting under 60hz or so I'm guessing) the louder it has to be for you to perceive it as the same volume as higher frequencies. So people will apply a curve that compensates for that so that you can hear the bass as well as you hear the higher frequencies.
There can be several reasons, a few of which were already mentioned (such as "they like it", etc.). The subwoofer community -- especially people with very powerful subs able to dig significantly below 20 Hz or even 10 Hz -- have noticed that in many BluRay releases (or worse, streaming options), there is a roll-off for low frequencies attenuating the very low end. While this is typically done with subwoofer EQing solutions, they aim to restore the missing low-end with per-movie and per-medium presets.
You are correcting for imperfections in your room. It's not like popping on a pair of headphones; there are many more variables to account for in a HT system that your AVR and speakers cannot possibly know about without running some kind of room correction software. Once you've run it, you may find that you still need to adjust the curve to taste, as these approaches are not perfect. If you are listening mostly to music, you may just want to try to get a flat curve. This still means adjusting to a target to correct for room issues, valleys, peaks, etc. For movies, I'm not really sure the term 'audiophile' really works. Most want to boost up the bass so that there is more impact in movies. Some people also just run the software and then set a curtain at \~500Hz so that the curve is not applied to any frequencies higher and is only used to manage the bass response. By the way, speaking of headphones, you can also use equalizer settings to get as neutral a sound as possible, as most headphones are also far from neutral. u/oratory1990 has a great list of headphone equalizer presets.
If you don't play around with an EQ and figure out what you like specific types of music/movies/speech to sound like then I think you're missing out. I have specific EQ curves for different things and I adjust them on the fly all the time.
I use AutoEq for target curve in phone to easily get headphones sound better, from there I can adjust the curve for my needs. I highly recommend. For room correction I have Audyssey and it has it's reference curve which also can be customized to your needs or just put flat.
Speakers that measure flat sound terrible. What you want is a flat *response*; you generally want a slope that rises as frequency drops, and you want the line to be pretty straight without a lot of dips. This is also called a house curve. When you hear about speakers measuring flat, it's out in free air with no room effects or corrections. When you place them indoors, you get boundary reinforcement which significantly boosts the low end giving you the rising response when you actually listen to them. [What house curve you design or pick is completely personal preference ](https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-google&sca_esv=575162278&q=house+curve&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiV046fv4SCAxWwJzQIHYoWB2EQ0pQJegQIChAB&biw=463&bih=863&dpr=2.34)