"Many audiophiles are "purists" at heart, and as such are closed-minded to anything that does not fit their purist mindset. In the case of room acoustics and EQ keep in mind that most of the people giving advise have little or no experience working with electronic EQ. Even if they have tried electronic room equalization, there is a learning curve and they may have given up before they fully understood how to use their device effectively. That said, it's not exactly rocket science."
I would probably be classified as a purist. At least by your standards. I think you mean purist to be someone doesn't have the same opinion as you.
Lets say that you removed your stereo system from your listening room and put a piano in its place. Like most rooms, its not perfect, so for this example, lets say the room excites a range of frequencies in the upper mids. Those notes sound a little louder than the others due to room acoustics. How would you fix the problem? One way would be to open up the piano and modify it by putting more felt on the hammers to the keys in the problem frequencies. Now all of the notes have the same volume if you hit them with the exact same amount of force. A flat frequency response. Another option would be to just leave everything as is and just live with the problem if its not too bad. And finally, you can fool with the room and not the piano. As a purist, I would go with one of the two latter options. Given the components the OP has, I believe you would do more damage to the systems sound using processing, digital or analog, than choosing another option.
Some may argue that this is just my opinion. That's correct, it is. But I do base my opinion on actual experience, and not just guessing. I have a Behringer 24/96 digital EQ that destroys the sound of my Wadia CD player. I also have a dbx analog EQ that ruins the sound of whatever preamp it gets used with. So, in my opinion, the OP's Ayon CD player is just to nice a player to be run through processing.
One option to consider is if you live near a Guitar Center, they stock the processors I mention, and many more. They have a great return policy so if you try something and it doesn't work out, just return it.
