Music System "Upgrades": Further Developments

My previous post was about trying to optimize my low-budget music system – Creative A250 speakers plugged directly into my PC – without buying any new gear. This post is a follow-up, specifically about equalizer settings. (Don't worry, I don't intend to write a new post each time I update my EQ profile.)

As I wrote in my earlier post, my speakers, left to their own devices, sound slightly bass-heavy and muddy. Since the Creatives don't have a physical bass knob, I resorted to a software solution: Equalizer APO with Peace GUI.

I started out using an EQ profile recommended by Google's AI mode. But after a bit of tweaking – guided by my own ears and with no AI input – I find that the following EQ profile works best:

It's just a slight cut to the bass, and an even slighter boost to the mids.

On forums, people routinely suggest setting the pre-amp (top left) to a negative value that matches or exceeds the highest slider gain (–1.5 dB in my case, since my highest gain is 1.5 dB). But even with the pre-amp set to zero, the Peak value meter shows no clipping on Spotify – which is what I use for listening to music on my PC – as long as Spotify's "Normalize volume" is turned on. When I turn it off, it does clip at times – not audibly, but I can see it on the meter.

Normalize volume, introduced to mitigate the worst excesses of the loudness wars, is a controversial setting. Some say it merely reduces the volume if needed, while others say it also compresses and thereby impacts sound quality, and so recommend turning it off. Based on this test shared on Reddit, I am inclined to side with the former faction, and I keep it on.

Spotify also says:

We normalize an entire album at the same time, so gain compensation doesn’t change between tracks. This means the softer tracks are as soft as you intend them to be.

So if you're listening to something like the Interstellar OST, which has some quiet tracks and some loud ones, normalization should in theory preserve that dynamic range, preserving their relationship to each other.

Equalizer APO has a quirk which I'll document here, in case it helps anyone. At some point, while trying different settings, I found that even with a flat preset – all sliders set to 0 dB – turning Equalizer APO on and off (power button at top right) was inexplicably affecting the sound.

This Reddit post finally solved the mystery for me. Turns out, if you accidentally right-click one of the EQ presets (bottom left), it becomes "Always active", i.e. applied on top of whatever other presets or settings you might be using. You have to click on the green-headed man (bottom left, next to the presets box) and turn off the "Always active" feature.

In the course of tweaking my equalizer settings, I ended up making a Spotify playlist called Speaker Test. There are many such playlists online, but this is mine :)

What It Sounds Like, from the KPop Demon Hunters OST, has a thumping beat and soaring soprano vocals. I also like how the lyrics – This is what it sounds like – feel fitting for testing speakers and EQ settings.

Last year I was selling my soundbar, and the buyer – a lady probably around my age – came to my condo to pick it up. I played What It Sounds Like as a demo, and she asked, "Do you have kids? Because my kids listen to this all the time." I said "No, I listen to it myself," which amused her greatly.

The live version of Hotel California is a universally popular test track, but I also included it for sentimental reasons. Years ago, when my brother and I were in school, we went to an electronics trade fair where we heard a hi-fi sound system, possibly for the first time in our lives. My parents now have a pretty good sound system, but back then, such a thing was a distant dream. Anyway, the speakers at the trade fair were playing Hotel California, and ever since, when my brother and I buy new speakers or headphones, this is the first track we play.

Anti-Hero features deep bass, densely-layered synth-pop instrumentation and considerable emotional range in the vocals. The version of Here Comes the Sun that I included in my playlist was mixed by Giles Martin – son of George Martin who produced the original stereo mix – sourced directly from the original eight-track session tapes. On my Creatives, with no equalizer settings dialed in, McCartney's bass occasionally overpowers the melody and flirts with distortion, e.g. at 0:33 (just before and after "Little darling"). The EQ profile that I chose takes care of this problem, dialing down the bass just enough.

Yoshiko Yamaguchi's Ye Lai Xiang is in the mix because after all these meticulously produced and mastered tracks, I enjoy the vintage crackle and lo-fi charm of this 1940s recording. Finally, I included Chaiyya Chaiyya simply because I like it, but then I found that it's featured on What Hi-Fi's 9 test tracks you've probably never heard of. Apparently its "infectiously rhythmic, upbeat elements are a true test of a system’s musicality."

Let me know if you have any favourite tracks for testing speakers. It's always nice to get reader recommendations, and potentially discover new music.

Music System "Upgrades"

I recently went down a hi-fi audio rabbit-hole, frequenting r/BudgetAudiophile and Audio Science Review, and watching videos like this fascinating lecture by Floyd Toole.

Long story short, I didn't buy anything in the end, and decided, at least for now, to just stick with my current low-budget setup. And by low-budget I mean truly low-budget: S$20, to be precise – a Creative A250 set which I bought secondhand a few years ago. It consists of a subwoofer and two satellite speakers, and is plugged into my computer's headphone jack.

Someday if I'm settled somewhere – or at least know I'm going to be in the same city for the foreseeable future – I might invest in a pair of nice bookshelf speakers, and an integrated DAC and amplifier. For now, I'm happy with the Creative, not least because I suspect I'm not a very discerning or demanding listener to begin with. For example, my parents have a nice set of speakers and amplifier. I can tell that the sound quality is superior to my Creative, but I'm not sure I would want to pay a significant amount for the upgrade.

If anything, all my research made me appreciate my Creative even more. By audiophile standards, it may not be up to scratch, but lay reviewers rate it highly in its class. It really was amazing value for money.

I then started wondering if there were any upgrades I could make to my setup that didn't involve buying gear.

DAC

The first thing I experimented with was a DAC – a device which converts digital data (e.g. from a computer or phone) to an analogue signal that speakers can play. DAC prices start at just a few dollars, and go up to the thousands. I read online that a DAC should improve sound quality – that is, plugging speakers into the DAC which is in turn plugged into the computer's USB-C port (as opposed to plugging speakers directly into the headphone jack).

As it happens, I already had a DAC – from the 'just a few dollars' end of the spectrum – which I had bought to connect wired headphones to my phone. When I tried this out with my Creatives, I couldn't hear any noticeable improvement. It could be because my DAC is too basic. Or perhaps the limiting factor is my speakers, or Spotify sound quality, or... who knows!

Equalizer APO and Peace GUI

Next, I thought about equalizer settings.

Much as I like my Creatives, I had long suspected that they are a bit bass-heavy. Certain things, like thunder or explosions in movies, sound impressive, but music can feel a bit muddy. My brother, who plays music and probably has a better ear than me, confirmed my suspicions.

The Creatives don't have a bass knob, so I downloaded the highly-regarded Equalizer APO with Peace GUI. Google AI gave me an impressively thorough set of recommendations tailored to my speakers and the kind of music I listen to. It even explained and justified each individual setting. One bit which I found interesting:

Budget 2.1 multimedia systems are inherently "scooped" by default – meaning the small satellite speakers struggle with lower-mid frequencies, and the down-firing subwoofer can quickly become muddy and overpowering.

This video explains subwoofer crossover; the AI response seems to be saying that the Creatives' frequency response likely has a dip, as shown at 4:19 of the video.

The AI-recommended EQ profile, designed to compensate for this shortcoming, does improve the sound. The speakers sound less muffled, more clear and airy – while the bass still packs a punch.

Monstercat Visualizer

The final "upgrade" was cosmetic, in the sense that it has no inherent impact on sound quality. But it looks nice, and thus improves the listening experience, however slightly.

Monstercat Visualizer is a Rainmeter skin – a kind of widget which shows dancing frequency bars on my desktop when I play music, and also fetches album art and track info from Spotify.

You can customize the number of bars, plus various other parameters like their height, width, colour, sensitivity and so on. I made a little demo here.

If you want to install the visualizer on your PC (this is Windows specific; I don't know how it works on other operating systems), the process is a bit complicated.

First off, I recommend using older versions of Rainmeter and Monstercat (I use 4.5.0 and 2.1.0 respectively), because the latest versions apparently cause Rainmeter to crash.

If you want not just the bars but also album art and track info from Spotify, you need to install two more tools – WebNowPlaying and spicetify-cli – as described here and here. Again, you need an older version of WebNowPlaying (I use 1.2.0), because the latest version doesn't work as documented here.

I don't want Rainmeter to launch on startup, so I disabled that option. Instead, using AutoHotKey, I configured my keyboard so that Win+S launches Spotify and Rainmeter simultaneously.

Clearly, Rainmeter and Monstercat are third-party tools, and their functionality is sometimes affected by Windows and Spotify updates. I am not sure how long the visualizer will continue to work, but hey, at least it works for now

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Edit: See Part 2.

Wireless Transfers

Quick notes on how I wirelessly transfer or stream data between a few different devices:

1. Windows PC > Android phone, and vice versa
2. Android phone > Kobo e-reader
3. Windows PC > Samsung Smart TV

It's a mundane and technical topic, but each process has its quirks. So I thought I'll put it out there – for my own reference, and on the off chance that it helps someone else.

PC > Android, and vice versa

Sometimes I want to transfer files between my PC and phone, e.g. a video which I edited on my PC but want to share through a mobile app, or a sound recording which I made on my phone but want to edit on my PC.

If you use a Windows PC and Android phone like I do, the integration is not as good as the Apple ecosystem where you can simply AirDrop files between Mac and iPhone. For a while I used to save the file as an attachment in a Gmail draft, then download it from my other device. But a better and faster way is to use dedicated apps – Phone Link on PC, and Link to Windows on phone. Once the apps are installed, the connection and file-transfer are simple enough – just a matter of following on-screen instructions.

One minor (but fixable) annoyance is that the devices then keep wanting to connect. This (and the attendant notifications) is not something I want, because it's only about once a week that I need to make such transfers.

The fix is to first go to Apps > Startup on your PC, and deactivate Phone Link. Then open Link to Windows on your phone, go to Settings, and turn it off.

When you want to transfer, you'll need to turn it back on, but I prefer that to leaving it on and have it constantly trying to connect.

Android > Kobo

If I download an e-book to my phone and want to read it on my Kobo (which is a Kindle-like e-reader), the transfer can be accomplished through a third-party utility called send.djazz.se – as explained on this Reddit thread. I also like the redditor's tip to set the Kobo browser homepage to the djazz page. It saves me a bit of time and effort, since this is literally the only thing I use the Kobo browser for.

Windows PC > Samsung Smart TV

My parents have a Samsung Series 6 Smart TV, and occasionally I'll want to use the TV to watch a movie file that lives on my hard drive. The first couple of times I used an HDMI cable, but then I have to take my computer out to the living room. I don't know why it took me a while to explore the possibility of a wireless connection.

Turns out, a wireless connection is possible, and quite straightforward if the TV and PC are on the same Wi-Fi network. No extra apps needed, and sound gets streamed too. But since the movie file is technically playing on my computer, I found that if I wanted to pause or resume the movie, I had to leave the comfort of the living-room and run back to my room to operate my computer.

To get around this, I use Unified Remote, an app which let's me use my phone keyboard to control my PC. In VLC Media Player, space bar is the shortcut for pause/resume, and it also works on the phone app.

Another shortcut I often use are the Left and Right Arrow keys, to jump 10 seconds back or forward. Unfortunately Arrow keys don't work on the free version of Unified Remote and other such apps; for that, you need the paid version. I even tried reassigning the VLC shortcuts for jump back and forward to other keys. The reassignment works on my PC, but for some reason, not on my phone via Unified Remote.

Oh well, as long as pause/resume works, I guess I can make do without arrow keys. Into each life some rain must fall.