Audio Systems: About my personal audio.., andrea bocelli, poppa doo

Question
Hello,
Recently i had bought myself a Transcend Tsonic 610 MP3 player. I am having no problems with the player, but my only area of doubt is the ear set i must use. the supplied earphones are below avg, but since those did not fit i went for a pair of in ear types. i bought Panasonic RP-HJE 200. these provide good sound but i am confused about the equalizer settings. the normal setting which is essentially "all set to zero"... distorts at high vol. i need some suggestions on setting up a 5-band equalizer correctly.

Answer
Setting the equalizer is a very personal matter.  It is your ear and you are listening to your favorite music, so what pleases you is what you want - to the dismay of a pure autio technician.

But, if you want a good approach to setting it here is my recommendation.

First, organize a series of music programs that contain a wide range of musical passages:  Bass sounds, Orchestra, Opera, Rock, Jazz, etc. that excersize all the range of audio frequencies and nuances.

Then, listen carefully, setting the eq to enhance that sound quality.  Through repeated passages and settings you can find the optimum for general listening OR the settings for the paticular sound that your are listening to.

Always start with the settings in their middle or nuetral positions.

I use  (for loudspeakers; I don't do much headphone listening) Telarc recordings for bass check because they are some of the best.  Poppa DOO DOO run is a very good test setup disc.  Then I use a good female vocolist like Celine Dion.  Then I use a good male vocalist like Andrea Bocelli or Paul Potts.  Then I use many other orchestral and pop for the other end.  And, Karen Carpenter is a very good test for female vocal as well.

Good luck and happy testing.

C

PS: There are many test cds that have signals of all kinds for such testing but I rather prefer the subjective method outlined above.

For the distortion problem, you are overdriving the internal electronics or the output amplifier.  This could be caused by headphones that are too low in impedance or some other mismatching.