DSP Devices for Room/Speaker Correction

Well, equalizers in general are, theoretically, room correction devices. The problem is, in the analog domain, every time you introduce another device into the stream, you take another derivative of the signal, and therefore introduce phasing problems. So a lot of audiophiles were against it, unless their room was severely "out of whack" (pardon the technical jargon). With the advent of such devices in the digital domain, this particular problem goes away. If I could afford it, I would definitely get such a device, as I used to have an equalizer in my system, and it did make a big difference. The other problem is that the "out-of-whackness" of a room is a function of where you are in the room. In some rooms (including my current one), those differences can be quite severe. Boominess, for example, goes up as you get closer to the walls, and even more so towards the corners. I've tuned my system to the sweet spot and refuse to listen critically anywhere else. This particular criticism is probably still applicable towards even the digital system.

I have also heard that systems sound better if "you" are not a part of the room acoustics. Maybe some type of clothing or a special suit is in order, perhaps a remote listening device?

PS: Can you imagine listening to your "speakers" on a quality set of headphones?

Most DSP based room acoustic correction equipment assumed the listener sit at a fix location and throught a closed loop monitor and apply compensation techniques (microphone to digitizer to DSP to amplifier to speaker) nulling out the anomaly cause by interaction between the speakers and the room. The problem arise when the listening position is changing (listener move about in the room) then the system must be retrained to compensate for a new listening location. Currently there is not existed a powerful DSP device that is capable of doing that kind of realtime correction so there are still room for improvement. Cheers,

Well, Dekay, if what you say is true, a real audiophile would just absent himself from the room, if not the house altogether, and be satisfied that by doing so that he had enabled his system to play at its best. Not being able to hear his system would be just another sacrifice a real audiophile would be willing to make. Wouldn't you agree, or does this belong on another thread...