Sound
Using a 10-band equalizer without ruining the mix
Small, deliberate cuts do more for everyday listening than dramatic boosts. A practical method for setting a 10-band EQ by ear.
The short answer
Cut before you boost, move in small steps, and judge the result on music you know well. A 10-band equalizer is a correction tool for your headphones and your room, not a way to rebuild a recording.
What each region roughly controls
| Band region | Frequency | What you hear |
|---|---|---|
| Sub bass | 32-64 Hz | Weight and physical rumble |
| Bass | 125-250 Hz | Body of kick and bass guitar |
| Low mids | 500 Hz | Warmth, and muddiness when overdone |
| Mids | 1 kHz | Vocal presence and instrument core |
| Upper mids | 2-4 kHz | Clarity, and harshness when overdone |
| Treble | 8-16 kHz | Air, cymbals, sibilance |
A method that works
- Start flat and listen to two tracks you know intimately.
- Identify one problem, in words: too boomy, too dull, too sharp.
- Cut the offending region by 2-3 dB rather than boosting its opposite.
- Re-listen at the same volume. Boosting makes everything sound "better" simply because it is louder.
- Stop once the problem is gone. Curves with five dramatic moves usually mean the first move was wrong.
About bass boost and volume boost
Bass boost is useful on small drivers that physically cannot reproduce low frequencies at level. Applied to headphones that already have plenty of low end, it mostly adds distortion and masks the mids.
Volume boost is for quiet sources: a soft transfer, a low-level recording, a podcast mastered too conservatively. Treat it as a corrective tool. Listening loudly for long periods carries a real hearing-health cost, so raise the floor rather than the ceiling.
Where OVO fits
OVO includes a 10-band equalizer, bass boost and volume boost inside the player, so shaping the sound is part of listening rather than a separate settings trip. The sound page explains each control and its boundaries.
