Perceptually Motivated Audio Equalization Using Fixed-Pole Parallel Second-Order Filters

In audio, equalizer design should take into account the frequency resolution of the auditory system. In this paper, this is accomplished by the fixed-pole design of parallel second-order filters. The design process has two steps: first, the poles of the filter are set according to the desired frequency resolution. Then, the feedforward coefficients of the second-order filters are determined by a linear least squares solution. The proposed parallel filter achieves effectively the same equalization results as the Kautz filter, but it requires 33% fewer multiplications and additions.