what is "Q" ?

[jeffmaher]

When someone says "...with a wide Q" on a paremetric equalizer...what does that mean? Is "Q" a bandwidth? Like a narrow one would be 1K to 2K.... and a wide one from 60 to 8K??

 

[legionserial]

Pretty much. Say for example, if you were to boost at 2k. With a narrow Q, you would be boosting 2k, and very few frequencies around it, and wold lok more like a spike at 2k. With a wide Q, you'd be boosting 2k and a whole bunch of frequencies around it, and would look like large curve peaking at 2k. So the wider the Q, the more surrounding frequencies are affected by your boost or cut or whatever.

 

[jeffmaher]

Thank you muchly. A more nuanced meaning than I guessed.

 

[MessianicDreams]

here's what it is in technical terms:


Q is the energy stored divided by the energy dissipated per cycle in a network. In audio terms, Q is calculated by diviinge the center frequency of the filter's response by the difference between the frequencies where the response is 1/2 of the center response.