Rives PARC parametric equalizer

This is quite normal. I assume you have installed it or you have heard the impact of the PARC in a friends system.

Bass response in 99% of home environments is extremely bumpy due to room modes. Therefore 99% of people with significant bass extension will have some extremly accentuated bass notes, a "Peak". Other bass notes will be muted or nearly non existant as there is a "Null".

Of course, this introduces some additional dynamics in the bass that were NOT on the recording.

Of course, 99% of people who have this problem and do not correct for it quickly get used to this odd bass sound.

=> This odd bass sound becomes "normal" as your brain recalibrates as to how it should sound for your musical favorites.

The first impression of correct bass is that the "WOW" is gone...the BOOM BOOM TIZZ gives way to a more balanced sound.

It takes time to get used to it!

You may notice that you can actually hear a bass riff properly with equal loudness or correct emphasis on each note as the musicians intended.

You may notice suddenly that each individual track sounds completely different to eachother in the way the bass sounds.... rather than the sameness you get when room modes dominate.

So give it time and you will realize that it is like suddenly removing the sugar from your coffee...hard at first....but eventually you realize you can fully taste the coffee and you get more out of it!

Note conceptually it is better to treat your room as much as you can and to get as even an in room bass response as you can prior to EQ treatment with a PARC. One of the criticisms of EQ'ing to adjust for correct bass is that you are adjusting BOTH the primary signal and the reverberant signal TOGETHER to get the right OVERALL level of sound. This means the primary signal is actually muted somewhat due to the preponderence of the reverberant signal. Conceptually some people postulate this may take some of the "edge" off of what you hear in the bass (changing the timbre or the relationship between primary and reverberant field). This is a fair argument...it is well known that a room with large RT60 is disasterous sounding and even if you get the signal levels in the bass correct through EQ you still suffer from overly long reverb times....simply put bass notes last too long and this will mask what you can hear in between these notes.

Bob,

Biamping should certainly give you huge improvment in clarity in the mid range, as you will reduce interaction from the crossovers and drivers being in one shared complex hard to drive circuit (read much easier load for each amp and way lower IMD, which is very audible)

=> I am not sure this improvement has necessarily a lot to do with the PARC however...surely it should be transparent in the mid and treble range...whereever it is placed?

Have either of you tried the PARC set flat and compared it with the bypass function?

Of course, if you have dirty power then adding any powered device may add complications. My experience is that digital devices seem most sensitive to power...

There is another thread at the moment that speculates how mid range can affect bass perception ....perhaps it also works in reverse too...

....all the same I am puzzled by what you both report but I don't doubt your observations.

Here is the link

You are right that with a digital parametric this could be a concern, but with analog circuitry it's negligible.

Excellent point. This worried me as I use a digital parametric, as far as I can tell from literature it has a 20 microsecond delay (about two samples at 96 Khz). I only pass the sub signal through this EQ (for the same reasons as Dotsystem and the logic that if it aint needed then keep it away in case it does something bad to the mid or treble from the mains). What does 20 microseconds amount to in delay....well it is about two thousands of the wavelength of an 80 Hz signal which amounts to moving my sub woofer back one-third of an inch. So unless I discover that the delay is much worse then I am not worried.

I agree with Rives that Analog circuitry would be negligible - no worry about delay!