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Room EQ Advisor

Play pink noise, measure your room’s response at the listening seat, and get parametric EQ cut suggestions (frequency, gain, Q) for the peaks — with a before/after simulation and an honest call on which problems EQ can fix and which need treatment.

ℹ This is an advisor, not a real-time corrector — you apply the filters in your own DAW/DSP (or a unit like miniDSP). It’s an uncalibrated measurement (speaker + room + mic, relative dB) at one seat, and EQ only helps there. Crucially it only cuts peaks and never boosts dips: a dip is usually a cancellation (null) that EQ can’t fill — boosting just wastes headroom. EQ tames modal peaks (roughly below 300 Hz) well; reflections and reverberation need physical treatment. The test tone plays through your speakers; the mic is analyzed live and never recorded.

Microphone is off. Set a comfortable level, click “Start measuring” from your seat, let it settle, then “Suggest EQ”.

How It Works

The tool plays pink noise through your speakers, measures the combined response at your listening seat, and removes pink’s natural tilt to give a relative response curve. When you press Suggest EQ it finds the peaks — frequencies where the room is too loud — and turns each into a parametric cut: the centre frequency is the peak, the gain is enough to flatten it, and the Q is estimated from how wide the peak is (a narrow modal peak gets a high-Q surgical cut; a broad bump gets a gentle one). It then simulates the result by applying those peaking filters back to the measurement and drawing the corrected curve over the original, so you can see the peaks come down. Apply the listed settings in your DAW, plugin, or hardware DSP and re-measure to confirm.

The most important thing this tool does is tell you what not to EQ. A dip in the response is almost always an acoustic cancellation — two sound paths arriving out of phase at your seat — and you cannot fill it with EQ: boosting just pushes more energy into a null that swallows it, wasting amplifier and speaker headroom for no benefit. The fix for a dip is physical: move the seat, the speakers, or the subwoofer, or treat the boundary causing it. EQ also only works at one position and only really helps with low-frequency modal peaks; reflections, comb filtering and reverberation in the mids and highs are jobs for absorption and diffusion, not filters. Cut, don’t boost; treat first, then EQ the residue; and trust a measurement over a graph.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why won’t you suggest boosts for dips?
Because dips are usually cancellations (nulls) at your seat, and EQ can’t fill a null — boosting just burns headroom while the cancellation still swallows the energy. Move the seat/speakers/sub or treat the room instead.
What can EQ actually fix?
Mostly low-frequency modal peaks (roughly below 300 Hz) at one listening position. It can’t fix reflections, comb filtering, reverberation, or the fact that the response changes as you move.
How is the Q chosen?
From the measured width of each peak: Q ≈ centre frequency ÷ its −3 dB bandwidth. Narrow resonances get a high-Q (surgical) cut; broad bumps get a low-Q (gentle) one. It’s clamped to a sensible range.
Is the before/after curve what I’ll really get?
It’s an idealised simulation — the suggested filters applied to your measurement. Real results depend on your actual EQ and the room, and the measurement is uncalibrated and single-position, so always re-measure after applying.
Should I treat the room or just EQ it?
Treat first. Bass traps and absorption fix the underlying problems (modes, reflections, decay) that EQ can only mask at one spot. Use EQ to polish the remaining low-frequency peaks after treatment.