Tweaking The Eq; Fbx Filters - SABINE Power-Q Operating Information Manual

third-octave centers, but are typically an octave wide, overlapping across adjacent filter controls.
You can vary the width of the POWER-Q's filters by accessing the "GLOBAL PARAMETERS"
option on the MAIN MENU (see Section 17).
The POWER-Q excels at the task of room equalization, offering both automatic and manual
frequency response adjustment. In the Automatic Room EQ mode (see section 9), a reference
microphone (with a reasonably flat frequency response) is placed at your choice of listening
positions in the acoustical environment. The POWER-Q automatically plays a short burst of pink
noise, and measures the energy across the audible spectrum as heard at the reference mic. The
POWER-Q then makes automatic adjustments to produce as flat a response as possible at the
reference position. You can make additional EQ adjustments (parametric and/or graphic) after
Automatic Room EQ, to tweak your system response by ear. The entire Automatic Room EQ
process takes less than a minute for both channels of the POWER-Q.
Alternatively, you may choose to equalize your system by playing pink noise over the loudspeakers
and observing the REAL-TIME ANALYSIS of the propagated energy across frequencies as heard
by the reference microphone (see Section 13). You must then manually adjust the equalization
faders of the POWER-Q's graphic equalizer section to produce the desired frequency response.
Note that the POWER-Q allows you to see both your equalization faders and the RTA response in
the same window, which spares you the cumbersome task of scrolling from one window to another
while you make adjustments.
Once the room is flat, you may want to customize the room
equalization to meet your own personal tastes or to match the entertainers' performance style.
You may do this either by making further adjustments with a second graphic equalizer (see
Section 10) or by inserting up to 12 parametric filters per channel for very precise adjustment (see
Section 11). These filters can be added in list (tabular) form or drawn as a response curve using
the data wheel. Once you have room and system tweaked to your ideal, you can save and name
up to 99 settings for future quick recall (Section 16).
In live sound reinforcement, the true limitation for system loudness is
not usually the wattage of the amplifiers, the headroom of the mixer or the power handling maxi-
mum of the speakers. Before the system clips, you will almost certainly encounter feedback. And
for eliminating feedback, there is no better system than the Sabine FBX Feedback Exterminator.
Once the sound system is properly equalized, the narrow filters of the FBX will go a long way
towards increasing loudness without feedback. Placing the FBX filters in line WITHOUT first
using a graphic equalizer to reduce broad resonant room frequencies may produce several narrow
FBX filters clustered together closely at a point. This means you will quickly exhaust available FBX
filters trying to do a job better suited to a wider filter (i.e., a graphic EQ fader), you'll reduce the
amount of potential increased loudness, and you won't get the maximum benefit of FBX.
The POWER-Q is the most complete system on the market that allows this much control over the
steps to maximize clarity and gain in any acoustical environment, using any sound system.