Why's an equalizers not called a disequalizer?

[St Drogo]

...Would seem more logical to me. After all, you usually use it to raise or lower the volume of the frequencies you desire or dislike, not make every frequency be equally loud.

[Shmone]

I'm going to guess that the original purpose was to make every frequency equally loud according to the specific room's acoustics or the used speakers or something like that?

[line6man]

The goal is not always to do that.

EQs can be used to "flatten" a sound with an unusual frequency response, it can be used to do the opposite and make some frequencies more or less prominent, it can be used to remove unwanted frequency content such as feedback, hiss or rumbling low frequencies, etc.

[Thunderthumbs73]

Originally Posted by St Drogo

...Would seem more logical to me. After all, you usually use it to raise or lower the volume of the frequencies you desire or dislike, not make every frequency be equally loud.

Disequalizer?

This presumes that before the equalizer is introduced into the signal chain that all frequencies were equally present in the first place?

And I suppose for just marketing's sake, aside from disinfectant, and few other notable examples, accentuating the negatives, may not make good advertizing? Like: "The new Chevy Malibu. It's the new un-Honda."

[zaubertuba]

LOL - The way a lot of people (mis)-use them, you have a good point.

Seriously. I believe equalization was originally used to even out unnatural response curves in room or equipment. Though more recently I think there's a fair amount of it being used for "coloration," as you're suggesting.

[M0ses]

Eh...who cares?

[JTE]

Because the function of an EQ is exactly that- to equalize the rig (amp, speakers, etc.) to the room. Originally created for use in recording studios so that anomalies in the room could be compensated for, or equalized.

Then they got added to home stereos, where the stereo store started drawing pictures with them, and they became abused.

John

[Spencer!]

The term "equalizer" comes from the early days of audio, when the quality of audio transducers and transformers was so bad that the output signal of a device was much different than the input signal. Equalizers were invented to make the output of a device more closely match the input.

[St Drogo]

Oh. I was hoping to invoke a wild discussion about weird terms in music. But it seems there's actually quite a straight-forward answer. Damn

It actually never occured to me the coloring use of eq's was not the original idea. Kinda neat.

[gregbackstrom]

Originally Posted by St Drogo

Oh. I was hoping to invoke a wild discussion about weird terms in music. But it seems there's actually quite a straight-forward answer. Damn

It actually never occured to me the coloring use of eq's was not the original idea. Kinda neat.

Maybe it's because the engineers who build 'em don't like it when the marketing people "dis" their designs!

[billfitzmaurice]

Originally Posted by Spencer!

The term "equalizer" comes from the early days of audio

Graphic EQs didn't exist until the late '60s. They only came about when solid state electronics made them practical.

the quality of audio transducers and transformers was so bad that the output signal of a device was much different than the input signal.

That situation was fully rectified by 1938, thirty plus years before the advent of multi-band EQ.

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

Passive EQs (including buffered ones) have been around since the 1920s or 30s or so.

In British recording and broadcast studios they were referred to as "curvebenders."

[Jazzdogg]

Originally Posted by Bob Lee (QSC)

Passive EQs (including buffered ones) have been around since the 1920s or 30s or so.

In British recording and broadcast studios they were referred to as "curvebenders."

"Curvebenders" sounds like something from a woman's undergarment infomercial.

[heath_r_91]

It equalizes the sound coming out of the amp to what is in your head.

[lpdeluxe]

The "equalizer" circuit was invented by the early telephone engineers, who wanted a way to make the sound you heard through the receiver "equal to" the original signal, after being transduced with a carbon microphone, sent through miles of primitive circuitry, to the rudimentary ear piece in your hand.

That is the origin of the word "equalize" and it has adhered to the concept of shaping tonal response for good and evil through a couple of centuries.

It has stayed in the vocabulary because everyone knows what it means, even though a vanishingly small percentage of those people know how to implement the concept in a creative way.

[St Drogo]

Originally Posted by heath_r_91

It equalizes the sound coming out of the amp to what is in your head.

Whoa! Nice angle of attack you chose there, man! You should sell stuff

Originally Posted by lpdeluxe

The "equalizer" circuit was invented by the early telephone engineers, who wanted a way to make the sound you heard through the receiver "equal to" the original signal, after being transduced with a carbon microphone, sent through miles of primitive circuitry, to the rudimentary ear piece in your hand.

That is the origin of the word "equalize" and it has adhered to the concept of shaping tonal response for good and evil through a couple of centuries.

It has stayed in the vocabulary because everyone knows what it means, even though a vanishingly small percentage of those people know how to implement the concept in a creative way.

It's cool to get this kind of information. I take it the eq was nessecary because there would be different earpieces you could connect? I mean, if there was only the one and you could not replace it, they would simply adjust the internal eq to be ideal for that attached earpiece and then it's use would have been obsolete, right?

[lpdeluxe]

Originally Posted by St Drogo

It's cool to get this kind of information. I take it the eq was necessary because there would be different earpieces you could connect? I mean, if there was only the one and you could not replace it, they would simply adjust the internal eq to be ideal for that attached earpiece and then it's use would have been obsolete, right?

The EQ circuit was "internal." There was no provision for user-adjustable equalizing. It wasn't until later that the concept was applied to something a recording engineer (for example) could use, and the terminology was carried over. THAT must have been an "eureka!" moment.