ok, so im curious about the complete guide to the equalizer. What setting is best for Rap/R&B, Rock, and Alternative. When i say setting i mean exactly how much mghz or whatever for each channel, how much Q setting, if LR should be locked or it all should be unlocked, and stuff like that.

I think you're asking the wrong question. The purpose of an equalizer isn't to change the music depending on genre. An equalizer with presets for "Rock", "Jazz", and "Classical" is missing the whole point of an equalizer.

An equalizer, as its name implies, is for equalizing the differences between the way the music was recorded and the way the music is being played back. Its purpose is to compensate for the quirks of your particular equipment and your listening environment. When used correctly, an equalizer should help make your stereo sound more like the mixing equipment that was used to produce the original recording.

For instance, you would use an equalizer to compensate for an unnatural low-midrange peak in your car speakers. Or to boost the response of a weak set of tweeters. Or to curtail certain frequencies of an overly-boomy subwoofer. The goal would be to produce a realistic and pleasing frequency response across the whole spectrum.

You would also use an equalizer to compensate for changes in your listening environment. The space where the music is played can have almost as much of an effect on the sound as the speakers themselves. A high-frequency reflection off the windshield could be corrected with an equalizer, for example.

But once you've got everything "dialed in", you wouldn't generally switch settings when you went from Rap to Jazz. If you've got a good system, and the EQ is doing its job, all genres should sound equally good.

Now I will admit that certain albums are produced poorly. You can use an equalizer to correct that sort of thing. For instance, I have a remastered version of The Fixx's "Shuttered Room" that was pretty badly butchered in the remastering process. They boosted the high frequencies way too much, making the album sound strident, almost painfully so. Correcting this would be a good task for an equalizer. But overall, my rock albums don't need correcting, it's only this one album, and only at a specific (unique) set of frequencies.

What this means is that there's no way anyone can give you exact numbers to plug into your equalizer. Since every stereo installation is different, and every listening room (or every car interior) is different, there's no way anyone can help you adjust your EQ unless they're sitting right there in the room/car with you. It's all done by ear, and in the actual listening environment itself.

An equalizer is a tool, not an appliance. Like any tool, it requires that the operator knows how to use it. You wouldn't go to an auto parts store and say, "My car stopped running, can I buy a wrench, please? Just one wrench, the standard size."

I recommend that you experiment with the equalizer and try to make it sound good for all of the music you play in your preferred listening environment. Start with the ten-band mode with L/R locked, and don't play with the Q's right away.

Compare the sound of many different tracks, listening closely to the details of the music. Adjust the equalizer one band at a time, making sure (at least initially) to keep everything below the 0db marker. Attenuate, don't boost. If you want to have louder bass, don't increase the bass, decrease the other frequencies.

Then listen carefully for distortion in the peak bands. Once you're sure you're not distorting anything, then begin to make fine adjustments to each of the bands. Live with your adjustments for a few days, and if you hear anything that irritates your ear, correct it. At first, you will be making lots of radical changes to the EQ curves. Then it will begin to settle into something you like and you'll only be making small corrections every day or two. Finally, it'll be "dialed in" and you won't make any more corrections.

Let us know how you do.

___________
Tony Fabris