Partybox 520 EQ settings via calibrated mic
Got the 520 a week ago to (hopefully) replace my OG 100, which I am still a fan of. Just wanted more. Was considering the 720 but the more I read the more I think the 520 is the biggest thing I want to lug around for outside use. The 720 just seemed like it would be too much even though it has more power. I scored a pretty good deal on eBay for like $511 with some coupon and for that price you really can't beat it, imo. Hell, my 100 may still be worth $250 and that's more than I paid like 5 years ago, so #winning.
That said, I was really not satisfied with the out of box tuning on this thing. I think it does sound worse than my 100. Fortunately, JBL included a 7 band EQ. But I'm not just going to tune this by ear like a savage, no sir.
That's right, I spent a whopping $8 on Audio Tool for Android and $45 on a Dayton iMM-6C mic (with optional downloaded calibration file by serial number).
I just came in from a tuning and listening session outside and I am pleased to report great results.
Technique/setup was as follows:
- Speaker about a foot from the side of my house (which will increase bass response but I always try to place it against something whenever possible)
- Listening position about 46 feet from speaker (yes I measured)
- I ran Leq a bunch of times using pink noise in Audio Tool, and tweaked the 7 band EQ in the JBL app
- Being a consumer grade speaker, it does weird things off axis. To optimize this for multiple listening positions, I did a slow sweep holding 46 feet maybe 20 or 30 degrees from straight on to average some of the off-axis response into it, using 1 minute samples. The idea is, all positions will be "wrong" but they'll all be a similar amount off of "right" so it will sound better to a wider range (as opposed to dialing it in for straight on listening only and then everything else suffers)
- As I got close I went back to the full spectrum response to check for any weird dips/peaks and I did find some. Ended up raising the 250 Hz back to level (so +3 from the original Leq direction) and also raised the 500Hz from level to +3.
- Did a last Leq and it looks pretty flat, all things considered from 16kHz down to 1Khz. 500Hz is still just slightly reduced which is perfect, to reduce boxiness according to Copilot. Response starts to pick up pretty fast from around 250Hz and lower, which is not objectionable for music outside.
Like I said, I am very pleased with this now. Take a look at my results and the resulting EQ. That's how far off this was stock. I am interested in feedback if anyone else tries these settings. I find I do not need to use the bass boost, at least when volume levels are 50%+ outside. At lower volumes, bass boost would probably fill in a loudness curve.
Maybe I should fiddle with 125 Hz and 250Hz a little more.
FFT looks halfway decent. I should post it with a flat EQ or one of the presets for lolz
T-1 is the final result, with T-2 through T-5 showing the tuning process.
T-1 is the final Leq result (I think I accidently reduced the volume a tad for this run though)
Like I said, whacky out of the box tuning. Serious mid-range recession but that could have something to do with the 2 way setup. I can hear mid-range coming out of the bass port at close range now so the DSP/amp must be really pushing the subs. Probably above a reasonable range for subs and below what the 1" tweeters can really handle. Oddly it also needed me to max the 8kHz. But the data doesn't lie.
