1.25 kHz peaking eq
Boosts or cuts a band around f0 and leaves both ends of the spectrum at unity. Solved at 8 sample rates, with the poles, the real −3 dB point and the word length it stops working at.
Magnitude response at 48 kHz
Every vertex is 20·log₁₀|H(ejω)| evaluated on the unit circle — not a sketch of the filter's shape. The faint traces behind it are the same corner at every Q in the sweep below.
Gain at f0 (1.25 kHz)
+6.00 dB
exact at every sample rate — the bilinear transform maps this value, not just the frequency
Pole radius at 48 kHz
0.9439099
conjugate pair at ±8.78°, 0.0561 from the circle
−3 dB point
772.1 Hz
0.618× f0 at Q = 1.0000
16-bit fixed point
holds
largest pole 0.9439233 in Q1.14
Coefficients, at every sample rate
The cookbook computes w₀ = 2πf₀/Fs, so the same filter is a different set of numbers at every rate. Rates whose Nyquist limit is at or below 1.25 kHz are absent because the filter does not exist there — equivalently, the f₀/Nyquist column never reaches 100%. That is why this table is 8 rows and a 20 Hz page is 8.
| Sample rate | b0 | b1 | b2 | a1 | a2 | Pole r | f₀/Nyquist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 kHz | 1.226315 | -0.858476 | 0.318901 | -0.858476 | 0.545216 | 0.738387 | 31.3% |
| 16 kHz | 1.142323 | -1.511612 | 0.571676 | -1.511612 | 0.713999 | 0.844985 | 15.6% |
| 22.1 kHz | 1.109350 | -1.668516 | 0.670908 | -1.668516 | 0.780259 | 0.883322 | 11.3% |
| 32 kHz | 1.078822 | -1.786416 | 0.762785 | -1.786416 | 0.841606 | 0.917391 | 7.8% |
| 44.1 kHz | 1.058728 | -1.852217 | 0.823256 | -1.852217 | 0.881984 | 0.939140 | 5.7% |
| 48 kHz | 1.054259 | -1.865709 | 0.836707 | -1.865709 | 0.890966 | 0.943910 | 5.2% |
| 96 kHz | 1.027981 | -1.937271 | 0.915792 | -1.937271 | 0.943772 | 0.971479 | 2.6% |
| 192 kHz | 1.014201 | -1.969813 | 0.957260 | -1.969813 | 0.971462 | 0.985628 | 1.3% |
const float b0 = 1.05425881f, b1 = -1.86570881f, b2 = 0.83670700f;
const float a1 = -1.86570881f, a2 = 0.89096581f; // a0 == 1What word length this filter survives
The fixed-point rows round all five coefficients to one shared scale, which is what a q15/q31 biquad section does with its post-shift.Pole radius is solved from the quadratic, not taken as √|a₂| — once rounding pushes the poles onto the real axis those two disagree, and the convenient one reports a comfortable margin on a filter that has already left the unit circle. Error is the worst deviation from float64 across frequencies where the response is within 40 dB of its own peak; below that it is measuring the −200 dB floor.
| Word format | Q format | Largest pole | √|a₂| says | Stable | Worst error in band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| float64 | — | 0.9439099 | 0.9439099 | yes | reference |
| float32 | — | 0.9439099 | 0.9439099 | yes | 0.0000 dB |
| 32-bit fixed | Q1.30 | 0.9439099 | 0.9439099 | yes | 0.0000 dB |
| 24-bit fixed | Q1.22 | 0.9439098 | 0.9439098 | yes | 0.0001 dB |
| 16-bit fixed | Q1.14 | 0.9439233 | 0.9439233 | yes | 0.0021 dB |
What Q does at 1.25 kHz
f₀ does not move with Q — the −3 dB point does. They are the same frequency only at Q = 1/√2, which is why a Butterworth corner is the one people quote and why every other Q surprises somebody.
| Q | At f₀ | Peak | −3 dB | Pole r | Group delay at f₀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5 | +6.00 dB | +6.00 dB @ 1.24 kHz | 2994 Hz | 0.890621 | 0.090 ms |
| 0.7071 | +6.00 dB | +6.00 dB @ 1.24 kHz | 2406 Hz | 0.921525 | 0.127 ms |
| 1 | +6.00 dB | +6.00 dB @ 1.24 kHz | 2019 Hz | 0.943910 | 0.180 ms |
| 2 | +6.00 dB | +5.99 dB @ 1.24 kHz | 1601 Hz | 0.971574 | 0.360 ms |
| 4 | +6.00 dB | +5.97 dB @ 1.24 kHz | 1418 Hz | 0.985687 | 0.721 ms |
| 10 | +6.00 dB | +5.81 dB @ 1.24 kHz | 1318 Hz | 0.994250 | 1.801 ms |
What gain does at 1.25 kHz
A peaking filter puts its full gain at f₀ and returns to unity at both ends of the spectrum.
| Gain | At f₀ | b0 | a1 | a2 | Pole r |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -12 dB | −12.00 dB | 0.895322 | -1.697437 | 0.720416 | 0.848773 |
| -6 dB | −6.00 dB | 0.948534 | -1.769688 | 0.793645 | 0.890867 |
| -3 dB | −3.00 dB | 0.974224 | -1.799129 | 0.823485 | 0.907461 |
| +3 dB | +3.00 dB | 1.026458 | -1.846731 | 0.871731 | 0.933665 |
| +6 dB | +6.00 dB | 1.054259 | -1.865709 | 0.890966 | 0.943910 |
| +12 dB | +12.00 dB | 1.116916 | -1.895895 | 0.921561 | 0.959980 |
Questions this filter answers
What are the biquad coefficients for a 1.25 kHz peaking EQ filter at 48 kHz?
b0 = 1.054259, b1 = -1.865709, b2 = 0.836707, a1 = -1.865709, a2 = 0.890966, with a0 normalised to 1 — the RBJ Audio EQ Cookbook form at Q = 1.0000 and +6 dB of gain. Every other sample rate in the table above gives different numbers for the same filter, because w0 = 2πf0/Fs and every cosine and sine downstream of it moves.
Is a 1.25 kHz peaking EQ filter stable in 16-bit fixed point?
Yes. Rounding the five coefficients to a shared 1.14 scale leaves the largest pole at 0.9439233, against 0.9439099 exact, and the response drifts by at most 0.002 dB inside the band. 24-bit takes that to 0.0001 dB.
Where is the real −3 dB point of a 1.25 kHz peaking EQ filter?
772.1 Hz, which is 0.618× the 1.25 kHz corner. f0 and the −3 dB point are the same frequency only at Q = 1/√2; this page is designed at Q = 1.0000, and the Q sweep above shows the point moving from 2993.6 Hz to 1318.4 Hz across the sweep while f0 never moves.
How close to the unit circle are the poles of a 1.25 kHz peaking EQ filter?
0.9439099 at 48 kHz, as a conjugate pair at ±8.78°. Pole radius rises toward 1 as the corner frequency falls relative to the sample rate — the same filter at 192 kHz sits at 0.9856276 and at 8 kHz at 0.7383872. That distance is the whole story of the fixed-point table: a pole a few parts in 10⁵ from the circle has nowhere to be rounded to.
The neighbouring corners
One third-octave either side, and the same 1.25 kHz corner as every other filter type.
- Low-pass1.25 kHz
- High-pass1.25 kHz
- Band-pass1.25 kHz
- Notch1.25 kHz
- All-pass1.25 kHz
- Low shelf1.25 kHz
- High shelf1.25 kHz
Method and limits. Coefficients follow the RBJ Audio EQ Cookbook, the bilinear transform of the analog prototype prewarped so the corner lands exactly on f0 — which is why +6.00 dB at 1.25 kHz holds at every sample rate in the table rather than only at low f0/Fs. Shelves fix the slope at S = 1, matching Web Audio's BiquadFilterNode, so Q is not read for those two types. Pole and zero radii are the roots of the quadratic, not sqrt(|a2|). The fixed-point rows model a single shared coefficient scale and no other quantisation: they say nothing about signal-path headroom, limit cycles or the accumulator width your implementation uses, all of which can make a filter that passes this table still misbehave. Nothing on this page is fetched or estimated — it is solved from the type and the frequency in the URL.