630 Hz 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 (630 Hz)
+6.00 dB
exact at every sample rate — the bilinear transform maps this value, not just the frequency
Pole radius at 48 kHz
0.9712550
conjugate pair at ±4.42°, 0.0287 from the circle
−3 dB point
388.8 Hz
0.617× f0 at Q = 1.0000
16-bit fixed point
holds
largest pole 0.9712669 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 630 Hz 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 | 1.143217 | -1.506846 | 0.568985 | -1.506846 | 0.712202 | 0.843921 | 15.8% |
| 16 kHz | 1.079390 | -1.784426 | 0.761074 | -1.784426 | 0.840464 | 0.916768 | 7.9% |
| 22.1 kHz | 1.059165 | -1.850876 | 0.821941 | -1.850876 | 0.881106 | 0.938672 | 5.7% |
| 32 kHz | 1.041649 | -1.901663 | 0.874656 | -1.901663 | 0.916305 | 0.957238 | 3.9% |
| 44.1 kHz | 1.030608 | -1.930688 | 0.907884 | -1.930688 | 0.938492 | 0.968758 | 2.9% |
| 48 kHz | 1.028198 | -1.936732 | 0.915139 | -1.936732 | 0.943336 | 0.971255 | 2.6% |
| 96 kHz | 1.014313 | -1.969561 | 0.956924 | -1.969561 | 0.971237 | 0.985514 | 1.3% |
| 192 kHz | 1.007210 | -1.985089 | 0.978301 | -1.985089 | 0.985511 | 0.992729 | 0.7% |
const float b0 = 1.02819761f, b1 = -1.93673197f, b2 = 0.91513871f;
const float a1 = -1.93673197f, a2 = 0.94333632f; // 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 | — | 0.9712550 | 0.9712550 | yes | reference |
| float32 | — | 0.9712550 | 0.9712550 | yes | 0.0001 dB |
| 32-bit fixed | Q1.30 | 0.9712550 | 0.9712550 | yes | 0.0000 dB |
| 24-bit fixed | Q1.22 | 0.9712550 | 0.9712550 | yes | 0.0001 dB |
| 16-bit fixed | Q1.14 | 0.9712669 | 0.9712669 | yes | 0.0376 dB |
What Q does at 630 Hz
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 @ 625 Hz | 1521 Hz | 0.943289 | 0.178 ms |
| 0.7071 | +6.00 dB | +6.00 dB @ 625 Hz | 1218 Hz | 0.959581 | 0.252 ms |
| 1 | +6.00 dB | +6.00 dB @ 625 Hz | 1020 Hz | 0.971255 | 0.356 ms |
| 2 | +6.00 dB | +5.99 dB @ 625 Hz | 807.7 Hz | 0.985526 | 0.713 ms |
| 4 | +6.00 dB | +5.98 dB @ 625 Hz | 714.5 Hz | 0.992737 | 1.426 ms |
| 10 | +6.00 dB | +5.87 dB @ 625 Hz | 663.9 Hz | 0.997088 | 3.562 ms |
What gain does at 630 Hz
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 | 0.943137 | -1.841844 | 0.848124 | 0.920937 |
| -6 dB | −6.00 dB | 0.972576 | -1.883618 | 0.890042 | 0.943420 |
| -3 dB | −3.00 dB | 0.986371 | -1.900188 | 0.906668 | 0.952191 |
| +3 dB | +3.00 dB | 1.013817 | -1.926444 | 0.933013 | 0.965926 |
| +6 dB | +6.00 dB | 1.028198 | -1.936732 | 0.943336 | 0.971255 |
| +12 dB | +12.00 dB | 1.060291 | -1.952891 | 0.959550 | 0.979566 |
Questions this filter answers
What are the biquad coefficients for a 630 Hz peaking EQ filter at 48 kHz?
b0 = 1.028198, b1 = -1.936732, b2 = 0.915139, a1 = -1.936732, a2 = 0.943336, 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 630 Hz 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 0.9712669, against 0.9712550 exact, and the response drifts by at most 0.038 dB inside the band. 24-bit takes that to 0.0001 dB.
Where is the real −3 dB point of a 630 Hz peaking EQ filter?
388.8 Hz, which is 0.617× the 630 Hz 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 1520.8 Hz to 663.9 Hz across the sweep while f0 never moves.
How close to the unit circle are the poles of a 630 Hz peaking EQ filter?
0.9712550 at 48 kHz, as a conjugate pair at ±4.42°. Pole radius rises toward 1 as the corner frequency falls relative to the sample rate — the same filter at 192 kHz sits at 0.9927292 and at 8 kHz at 0.8439208. 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 630 Hz corner as every other filter type.
- Low-pass630 Hz
- High-pass630 Hz
- Band-pass630 Hz
- Notch630 Hz
- All-pass630 Hz
- Low shelf630 Hz
- High shelf630 Hz
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 630 Hz 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.