The main difficulties I encounter are hearing/distinguishing dialogue not music, hence thinking I could boost high frequency whilst adjusting the mid frequencies to 'unmuddy' the sound. I have a "feeling" there is a limited block of mid frequencies that are the main issue?
So it's not at all about high volume, it's low volume spoken clarity. Re the iTunes graphic equaliser, I can't see a way to channel my audio sources - streamed film/tv etc through the app.
…. These are the second pair of JBL Control Ones I've had.....
FWIW I have hearing that (somehow) isn't terminally buggered and what I've noticed is that different loudspeakers differ enormously in the clarity of vocals in particular, even though they might appear to have a similar frequency response to other loudspeakers, and don't sound that different to one another when listening to (vocal-less) music which contains a similar mix of frequencies.
The conclusion I have come to is that the most likely reason for this is not that the loudspeakers are incapable of producing the appropriate frequencies, it is more that when they do so, the
phase relationship between the different frequencies which comprise a given sound is not always accurately reproduced. So for example certain sounds (eg amongst other things I think some are called 'plosives'...) include a mix of frequencies, are key to comprehension of language and such sounds also contain an implicit phase relationship between the different frequencies, because of how they are made.
So anyway IME the
poorest rendition of vocals is often in two-way speakers; that you use the expression 'unmuddy' tells me that the problem may well be similar to the one I have observed. If so simply making certain frequencies louder may not help that much; in effect it is still rubbish, just
louder rubbish; this is no substitute for clarity!
I'd suggest that you try a few different loudspeakers; to my surprise the clearest vocal rendition is often most easily obtained by using a single driver unit. Often these have single voice coil which includes an extra (passive) cone in the centre of the diaphragm which is simply there to radiate the higher frequencies; I
think that because it is part of the same structure as the rest of the diaphragm, it is much less likely that the complex vocal sounds will end up with bad phase distortion; in any event test data shows a flat response in the frequency range of interest but this is often out of all proportion with the vocal clarity. If you can't find any speakers that you like the sound of to buy, I'd suggest you could probably make something easily enough by using simple car loudspeaker units (which are often of this layout) in a simple enclosure. For example Pioneer TS-G1710F, mounted in a suitable enclosure, ought to provide good vocal clarity; to be clear I have not used this exact model myself but I have used its predecessors, which are of similar construction/specification.
When I was younger I could hear high frequencies very clearly indeed but these days I am happy enough listening to music through a system which doesn't have much response above about 12-14khz. It has been a while since I had it checked but I suspect that at higher frequencies than this I'm just not hearing them as well any more; this is commonly the case with age; few retain perfect hearing as the years go by.
However provided a suitable speaker system is used, even with compromised hearing you can give yourself the best chance of hearing vocals clearly, and a lot of two-way speakers are noticeably lacking in this respect.
hth
cheers
