The advice thus far is good, but there are a few areas I would like to caution you on. First, I should tell you that we manufacture a parametric EQ and as such I am biased towards it. However, we designed it with very specific goals in mind and I think it's important to understand those, even if it may not be the eq for you, you can learn from our design strategy. All our company does is small room acoustics. Thus our design not only reflects a superior technical design, it also reflects our philosophy on room acoustics.
The unit is called the PARC for Parametric Adaptive Room Compensation. It is a stereo 3 bands per channel unit that offers variable Q (width of the curve), attenuation, and center frequency. The unit is specifically designed to attenuate bass room modes. Thus it only operates from 18 to 350 Hz (we recommend that it only be used from 200 Hz and below) and it attenuates ONLY. We have it attenuate only because boosting low frequencies can cause other problems such as overdriving an amplifier in a particularly low impedance point of a particular speaker. We also limited the frequency to bass response only. This is because anything above this can be easily treated in the room and we strongly believe in NOT using an equalizer unless you have to. Bass modes are difficult to deal with passively and the PARC is a very practical solution.
The other aspect of the design was sonic quality. We listened to digital correction systems and felt they all thinned the sound. Additionally, we did not want another A/D or D/A conversion that might not be as good as the source from either high resolution digital (SACD DVD-A) or vinyl playback systems. We were looking for the ultimate in transparency and went with an analog design.
Thus I would caution on using an EQ in the higher frequency. You can get rid of brightness in a room and it may be a combination of absorption material, bass re-enforcement, and the speakers. Do you by any chance have a lot of windows in the room? They leak bass badly and will throw off the balance of the system and cause it to sound bright, not unlike a room that does not have enough high frequency absorption.
You can visit our website for more on this unit and go to our listening room where we have tutorial on some basic room acoustic problems.
http://www.rivesaudio.com
The unit is called the PARC for Parametric Adaptive Room Compensation. It is a stereo 3 bands per channel unit that offers variable Q (width of the curve), attenuation, and center frequency. The unit is specifically designed to attenuate bass room modes. Thus it only operates from 18 to 350 Hz (we recommend that it only be used from 200 Hz and below) and it attenuates ONLY. We have it attenuate only because boosting low frequencies can cause other problems such as overdriving an amplifier in a particularly low impedance point of a particular speaker. We also limited the frequency to bass response only. This is because anything above this can be easily treated in the room and we strongly believe in NOT using an equalizer unless you have to. Bass modes are difficult to deal with passively and the PARC is a very practical solution.
The other aspect of the design was sonic quality. We listened to digital correction systems and felt they all thinned the sound. Additionally, we did not want another A/D or D/A conversion that might not be as good as the source from either high resolution digital (SACD DVD-A) or vinyl playback systems. We were looking for the ultimate in transparency and went with an analog design.
Thus I would caution on using an EQ in the higher frequency. You can get rid of brightness in a room and it may be a combination of absorption material, bass re-enforcement, and the speakers. Do you by any chance have a lot of windows in the room? They leak bass badly and will throw off the balance of the system and cause it to sound bright, not unlike a room that does not have enough high frequency absorption.
You can visit our website for more on this unit and go to our listening room where we have tutorial on some basic room acoustic problems.
http://www.rivesaudio.com