Pink noise/white noise - Which one do you use and why?

[Telecruiser]

OK, you got your RTA all set up and you're ready to set your EQ. Is it pink noise or white and why?

 

Help me out, I'm a newbie.

[dboomer]

Pink because it is equal energy per octave and not per frequency ... same as an RTA

[jwlussow]

White noise

 

 

White spectrum

(logarithmic frequency axis)

White noise is a signal (or process), named by analogy to white light, with equal energy per cycle (hertz).[1][2] This produces a flat frequency spectrum in linear space. In other words, the signal has equal power in any band of a given bandwidth (power spectral density). For example, the range of frequencies between 40 Hz and 60 Hz contains the same amount of sound power as the range between 4000 Hz and 4020 Hz has.

A signal is considered "white" if it has a flat spectrum over a defined frequency band (such as the range of human hearing, or the frequency response of audio/visual equipment).

 

 

Pink noise

 

 

Pink noise spectrum. Power density falls off at 10 dB/decade (-3 dB/octave).

The frequency spectrum of pink noise is flat in logarithmic space; it has equal power in bands that are proportionally wide.[3][2] This means that pink noise would have equal power in the frequency range from 40 to 60 Hz as in the band from 4000 to 6000 Hz. Since humans hear in such a proportional space, where a doubling of frequency is perceived the same regardless of actual frequency (40

[agedhorse]

Pink only.

 

You really don't want to use white nouse because you will exceed the power handling of your HF drivers much more quickly.

[6Imzadi]

jwlussow, that is interesting. Did you write that yourself, or copy it from somewhere? If copied, it's customary to cite the passage. I, for one, would be interested to read more on the subject.