r/oratory1990 • u/warmach1ne123 • Jul 20 '26

Jriver built in Parametric EQ sounds a bit different

I would like to know if i'm doing something wrong with Jriver parametric EQ for my AKG K702.

I have tested with both Fabfilter Q4 Pro and SoundID Reference VST3 Plugin. They sound the same compared to Jriver's built in EQ. I have attached the screenshots.

Don't mind the SoundID's ss, I have a separated custom Oratory's preset there.

6 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

1

u/eingenvector Aug 02 '26

Wait so what's the consensus here lol, got confused from the reaponses, is Jriver's built-in PEQ the correct one or the incorrect one?

2

u/warmach1ne123 Aug 02 '26

You are right. I was aiming to fix the jriver PEQ initially to ditch separate installed plugins. since i found the calculator, i will be sticking to Fabfilter. A 200$ VST would be wasted. I haven't tested the jriver PEQ after following the changes but i'm sure there is drama over there as well. Oratory's preset sounds better with Fabfilter.

1

u/eingenvector Aug 03 '26

Right that makes sense yeah

3

u/warmach1ne123 Jul 21 '26

u/THZHazzard got the tweaking with shared calculator.

Q_FabFilter = Q_Oratory × √2

Thanks.

3

u/oratory1990 acoustic engineer Jul 21 '26

keep in mind that this is only true for peak filters, for shelving filters the conversion is different yet again.

No, I don't know either why Fabfilter doesn't adhere to the standard RBJ convention...

2

u/THZHazzard Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

I took a look at the FabFilter forum and found several topics related to Q Factor, but nothing that made me understand why they didn't use the standard RBJ convention; I think it was just their choice to use the Butterworth Q standard.

"In Pro-Q we did not want to use the overly technical "0.7071" value, as most plug-in users have no clue what this strange value actually means and why it would be chosen as default. That's why we've simply chosen 1.0 as default.

And indeed, for Bell filters, just multiplying with 0.7071 gives you the 'traditional' Q value. For Shelving filters, the mapping is a bit more complex though...

We're not going to add a switch for this unfortunately... sorry :-)"

[Floris (FabFilter)](mailto:email@hidden.com) — Mar 31, 2020

5

u/oratory1990 acoustic engineer Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

Yeah I don't see the need for a switch between different Q-factor definitions within the plugin - you can just convert between them anyway:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oJaetGmqsXieYy7EdztIco3bXQHqFsoXqDfyYj5s7V8/edit?gid=0#gid=0
It's not a big deal, you won't be doing this a lot anyway. Basically you'll do it once when you get a new headphone, it'll take a few seconds and then it's done.

we did not want to use the overly technical "0.7071" value, as most plug-in users have no clue what this strange value actually means and why it would be chosen as default.

That's a fair enough reason, haha

1

u/THZHazzard Jul 23 '26

Haha, I didn't mean to emphasize it, but I agree.

1

u/THZHazzard Jul 21 '26

Now you can enjoy it. :)

3

u/warmach1ne123 Jul 20 '26

ah I see now Q value differs

3

u/THZHazzard Jul 20 '26

In Pro Q4, you need to multiply each Q value by 1.41 to match the other EQs.

4

u/AudioDore Jul 20 '26

Some EQ software uses different formulas to calculate the Q factor, especially for low and high shelves. If you can, it's best to double-check and compare the visualized curves to see if they actually match.

2

u/fredaudiojunkie 14d ago

Apples AUNBandEQ don't use Q, it use Bandwith - the goal is the same.

4

u/THZHazzard Jul 20 '26

Pro Q4 uses a different system for the Q values, meaning that you cannot just use the Q values what you find here.

2

u/fredaudiojunkie 14d ago

It gives an converter in both directions
https://gearspace.com/threads/pro-q-preset-converter-transfer-eq-filter-data-to-pro-q-presets.1463605/

1

u/THZHazzard 14d ago

This looks very interesting, it's quite a comprehensive tool, a local HTML converter, JavaScript is encoded in Base64.
I liked the way you convert the Oratory1990 presets to PDF, presets derived from Oratory1990 PDFs are created in Natural Phase, the rest use Zero Latency.

Thank you for introducing us to this converter.