Is there such a thing as audiophile parametric eq?

Restock: I do not have a reference, though I imagine that somewhere in the Harmon reference white papers it's there--just a matter of getting through them all. It's pretty common knowledge amoung acousticians regarding the phase shift. As to the averaging and positioning, you are correct. We always recommend you work with speaker position and listening position before calibrating the EQ. You will find that once calibrated it's better and just about all locations, even if you calibrated for only one spot. We've done tests with averaging and usually get worse results because it's masks a portion of the problem. This is not intuitive and not what we originally predicted. It was literally hundreds of calibrations and testing that led us to this conclusion.

I have 6 Behringer units in saveral of my systems. Never had a problem with any of them.

Rives, thanks for your comments. I will try to research some of the white papers. Your results for the averaging are very surprising indeed - not what I would have expected from a physics perspective.

Thanks very much!

Restock--yes the physics are surprising, and I'm a physicist, but if you look at the results individually of what's then averaged it makes sense. The averaging becomes a mask of some of the biggest problems. Because the biggest model problems also yeild the biggest nulls at a different location. When you reduce the peak, oddly enough the null is not as larger an aberation relative to the rest of the field. However, if you average those nulls in then you never deal with the biggest problem axial modes fully. It really does go against common sense until you examine it fully.

Restick,

I am with Rives. You should not average listening points to get an "average" signal as this totally defeats the purpose of correcting for room modes by smearing/smoothing out the problems.

However, in contrast, you should not seek to iron out every bump/null at every 1 Hz data point and get a ruler flat response at one spot....who is to say that one spot is the most representative of the signal quality within your sweetpot area (and after all your ears are 6 inches apart and do some averaging themselves). Who is to say that your zealous corrections are not making it worse 2 feet to the side or causing phase irregularities from sharp filters, for example?

Go for the big broad bumps at lowish frequencies and forget chasing 2 Hz nulls. Once you are satisifed take some measurements around the sweetspot and see how wide an area you can achieve. The biggest sweetspot comes from having a largish room and from treating all the corners and as much of the room as you can with absorption (includes furniture) that works down to say 50 Hz (big thick absorbers). Another factor is leakage....a room that leaks (wood frame) is better than a basement with five surfaces that are concrete. (although a leaky room may disturb others in your home it is usually better sounding)

Perhaps Rives can add whether it is best to stick with 1/6 octave or to do each frequency Hertz by Hertz up to 200 Hertz or so?

Remember also that many speakers produce 10% or more harmonic distortion at realistic levels when driven at low frequencies below 80 Hz (especially small ported designs) In this case your response plot may become misleading, as what you think is a mid bass problem may be caused by excessive harmonics from low frequencies causing mid bass bloom.

A bass guitar with fundamental notes between 50 and 100 Hz will produce 2nd harmonic between 100 and 200 Hz the second harmonic and higher will be part of the signature sound of the bass guitar anyway. However, your ears are roughly 10 decibels more sensitive to 150 Hz than 75Hz and therefore a second harmonic that is only 30% as loud as the fundamental will sound equally as loud as the fundamental note. If you add typical speaker or harmonic amplifier distortion to this then you can easily see how mid bass can get over boosted and the guitar much stronger than the musican/recording engineer intended...all without even considering any room mode problems.

Good luck...