Rock preset – why always sounds good?

In any music systems, try listening to any of your favorite song in all equalizer presets (EQ-presets). Finally, which preset sounds good to you?

Well, most people say, "Rock" preset is good, be it an amplifier powered system or a simple low powered factory fitted car audio. This is the reason, your home audio or car audio salesperson first puts the gear in "rock" preset or "custom" preset, so that your first impression is won! Sometimes, this behavior of sound systems, raises questions such as: "then, why people pay high prices to get ‘flat’ response audio components?". Let me try answering the underlying phenomenon.

By nature of human ear, ‘flat’ preset is not perceived to be sounding good. This has been studied & proven by scientists Fletcher & Munson, from Bell Labs. Fletcher & Munson state that:

Humans do not hear the low frequencies (bass) and the extreme high frequencies (treble) as well at low volumes.

In comparison to midrange, human hearing finds it 64 times as hard to hear the bass frequencies at low levels. It is about 16 times as hard to hear the extreme highs. This effect is named as Fletcher & Munson Effect and shown by Fletcher & Munson curves.

To solve this known, issue, you can make use of Equalizer and tune the frequencies to compensate for this. If you observe the "Rock" EQ-preset, you will notice that, it suppresses the midrange a bit and boosts the high & low frequency levels. The similar or even better tuning can be achieved using ‘custom’ preset, wherein you have control over the frequency levels and you can tune whatever range you want to boost or damp.

Now, coming to ‘flat’ response, it is understood wrong by many people. Flat response, just means that, the ability of an audio component to correctly pass the signal from its input to its output with regard to the signal amplitude & frequency. Your input signal dynamics are kept intact, in a flat response component. But, the Fletcher Munson effect still applies to the reproduced sound (output), as it is concerned with the perception of sound by human ears. Jazz, Powerful, Soft & Party are few other EQ-Presets that boost low & high frequency range. So, when you go shopping for a car audio or home audio, make sure you buy the one with all preset and preferably with one or more ‘custom’ presets.