Rives PARC or Tact 2.0 AA for room correction?


Hi

I am looking for an analog room correction system and am looking at a used Rives PARC parametric EQ and Tact RCS 2.0 AA (with analog boards included) which were offered to me at similar prices.

I am quite happy running a pair of XLR interconnects straight from my CD player to my Preamp and have no intention of adding any DACs to my system.

However the advantage of getting the TACT is its versatility. I also suspect that it may be easier to set up.

Would the analog connections offered by the TACT be comparable to the Rives in terms of sound quality?

As I have no ability to trial both systems in my home, any advice is much appreciated.
acweed6
Thanks, I am grateful for all for your informative feedback. I'm glad my question has also stirred discussion on an issue that has concerned many.

For all practical purposes, it seems like the Rives is the better way to go if I want to preserve a purer analog signal. Will try to audition that in my system.

Alternatively I'm also thinking of a used 2.2x with the better DAC, if resale prices are close to the Rives and affordable.

Apart from the Absolute Sound review, has anybody out there compared/listened to the Tact 2.2X and the Rives PARC and made any observations?
Hi Onhwy61

Using an EMC CD1 as my primary source. I'm not sure if I'll go back to vinyl, but intend to do so in the future.
It doesn't make much sense to use the Tact unless you're going to just use the EMC as a transport and rely upon the Tact for D/A conversion. There is absolutely no reason to add extra A/D and D/A stages to your playback chain. The Tact's D/A may or may not be an improvement over the EMC, only comparison listening will give you that answer. Your original post says you're looking for an analog EQ device, that eliminates the Tact and leaves the Rives, or any other analog parametric EQ device.

BTW, I own a TACT 2.0 and think it's a marvelous piece of equipment. It has a very steep learning curve, but it is capable of serious sound alteration. If used correctly, it's wonderful, but it doesn't sound like it's the piece you're looking for.
Onhwy, I don't understand your suggestion that the TACT is inappropriate for this application and assertion that analog equalization is the optimal solution. The reason to add an "extra A/D and D/A" stage in the playback is to remove room effects which have a great negative impact than any intermediate processing steps.

Candidly, the 'digital artifact' argument (not made by you) is a bit specious, for analog equalization also introduces phase and amplitude artifacts to the playback. So it's more an issue of minimizing the negative effects of the improvement activity. And on this score, we fall into the subjective realm of what people are looking for in their system. If time coherency is paramount to the listener, then there is one product which can assist. If frequency flatness is desired, however, then there are two approaches (which have pros and cons).