[pulseaudio-tickets] [Bug 94971] Please fix PulseAudio equalizer

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94971

--- Comment #1 from Alexander E. Patrakov <patrakov at gmail.com> ---
Personal (and heavily biased) opinion follows.

No, we don't need an equalizer. In 2016, it's an outdated concept in consumer
audio world.

Equalizers are something too difficult for normal people (not audio engineers)
to operate. And we shouldn't model our UI on Windows when there are better
models. In fact, many high-end AV receivers don't have equalizers, and have a
better UI for the tasks normally solved with equalizers in Windows.

The problem usually half-solved by an equalizer is bad room acoustics (room
modes resonating on certain notes, and reflections) or bad speakers (that
either resonate on some frequencies, or inadequately reproduce others, or,
worse, distort mid-range when bass is present at all). An equalizer can
somewhat flatten the amplitude response, but can do nothing with the phase
response (which is critical if you want to have pin-point stereo imaging, not
corrupted by room reflections). And the number of bands that a human can manage
is too low for any adequate compensation of the room acoustic problems.

What I propose is to integrate "digital room correction" instead ("Audyssey" is
one of the trademarks related to this subject). It relies on a set of
measurements made with a known-flat omnidirectional microphone (receivers
usually ship with such microphone). A corrective FIR filter is then built,
which is convolved with the audio signal. This way, both amplitude issues and
even some early reflections can be corrected. A microphone suitable for room
correction can be obtained for as low as 30 EUR, and the math for calculating
the filter is already available as open source: http://drc-fir.sourceforge.net/

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