Flattening the headrush curve

WKSmith

Power User
The headrush 108 is a popular and cheap way to monitor fractal rigs. But it is far from "flat". Flat is relative to a lot of things. This thread aims to tame the worst deviations and make the critter behave a little better.

I picked up a miniDsp UMIC-1 and REW software on the Mac using the FM3 as the interface . And with the headrush on the floor, contour switch off, and surrounded in a heavy slab of foam to minimize the room and floor..

Analyzing the RTA plots hundreds of times revealed some big dips in response that can be corrected somewhat with global eq.

The first plot in Red shows the 108 without eq. The plot in blue shows the corrected response with parametric global eq.... which is limited from the lowest and highest bands being shelving instead of peaking. But it still made a drastic difference removing the blanket and boominess.

And the second pic are the settings on the global eq .
Hope this helps someone. Your mileage, temperature, and humidity may vary

Edited to add the Q settings

Filter1 2.327
Filter2 7.720
Filter3 6.632
Filter4 .958
Filter5 1.573

Thanks to @scottp for the attached image with all the parameters in one spot!
 

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I am going for a house curve. Not ruler flat. But there are some big holes in the response of the 108 .... especially at 800Hz, which is important to accurately model a BadCat.
 
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Thanks. I have an Ax FX II, so the question is about the Q value for all bands, especially 263 and 904 Hz. 2. Do you think it is possible to correct approximately for this picture on the slider equalizer -Out 2 with its standard frequencies and Q?
 
Thanks. I have an Ax FX II, so the question is about the Q value for all bands, especially 263 and 904 Hz. 2. Do you think it is possible to correct approximately for this picture on the slider equalizer -Out 2 with its standard frequencies and Q?
I did not have as much success using the graphic (sliders) eq
 
I got a second 108. When I first used the EQ to correct the HR, it seemed really bright. But I had over compensated the highs to make the 108 sound right. After flattening them out, they behaved more like my studio monitors.

After re-working some presets with now more accurate monitoring, my FOH sounds much better too.
 
I've just been working on the eq-correction, but it's more difficult to achieve than I thought. I get the hearing fatique thing very fast when comparing the monitors to the headrush. I think I do not miss that much high end so i backed off the highs a bit after applying the correction. I do understand lowering the mids at 900-somehwere! :)
 
I think this is a big win. Sounds a tonne better to my ears. I've had to tweak amps back to more "normal" settings which is easy done. I definitely recommend giving this a try. Thanks WKSmith!
 
I’ve been trying again, this time with the speaker off the floor, and now I notice it’s much more in line with my monitors. Thanks for sharing this! :)
 
Did you measure correctly ? Woofer is hard to measure right and if bassreflex port used, measuring is more complex for right results. Needs nearfield measure both speaker and BR because room is too short for low frequencies.
 
I find it strange that the Headrush 108's get a lot of hate/snobbery. Just because they are "affordable" doesn't make them automatic rubbish. Great tone is in the ears of the beholder. Just to put it out there, I sold my Adam A7X's as the 108's sounded more guitar amp like.....they even feedback. A lot of that could be that I have the 108's on the floor, isolated and angled up compared to studio monitors at head height firing at your ears. The 108's deliver an amp in the room experience as far as I'm concerned and I have owned over 50 valve amps in my time and still have 3 I use regularly in a separate jam space to my Axe FX 3. The WKSmith eq settings just make the 108's even better!
 
Thank you for this. I always felt I was missing some sparkle and this did the trick! Looking forward to reworking some patches and getting more of the sound I was expecting out of a few great presets already out there!!
 
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