Does anyone use any kind of Graphic Equaliser or Room correction Equipment ?

I am happy with my current system regarding speakers and electronics, i have experimented with isolation with great results especially placing my loudspeakers on Townshend Audio Seismic Podiums, i am looking into room treatments, i do not feel i have any major issues but would love to know if i can squeeze any more performance out of my system, i have read about room correction products which you integrate into your system like a piece of electronics, from memory i believe TACT is a company that sells or used to sell products,

Does anyone use any kind of room correction equipment ?

If so which do you use how effective is it and does it help please thank you i am looking forward to any ones response on this subject.

 

Every home living space set up for hifi stereo reproduction has "major issues" relating to speaker-boundary and listener-boundary interference response, room mode related cancellations and reinforcements, and most also have problems relating to flutter echo between parallel reflective walls and ceilings, comb filtering effects, uneven decay times, etc. Shoot your room some time -- get some free real time analysis software and a a $100 omni measuring mic with a calibration file and run some frequency sweeps. If you've done nothing to treat your room, I think you'll be amazed to find how substantially less than flat your frequency response is at your listening position, how uneven the energy-time curve is, how substantial the time overhang is in low frequencies, etc.

Room correction, especially really sophisticated (and relatively expensive) stuff that can correct for frequency and phase, and really help if you're using a digital system. But it's not really going to be able to deal with mode or boundary related nulls or time decay overhanging in the bass, or other decay unevenness. You really should start with room treatment and placement to minimize boundary related peaks and nulls and to level out, to the extent possible, decay times, and then use the DSP room correction or EQ (you might be better off with parametric vs. graphic, but analog EQ isn't going to help you with phase and timing stuff the way processor heavy modern sophisticated digital room correction can), as kind of icing on the cake. Of course, if you're listening to analog, that's going to mean digitizing your analog signal which may not be something you want to do.

Personally, I while I've played around with EQ, in the end I just do the best I can with room placement and treatments and live with the compromises. But these days there's some pretty amazing DSP room correction stuff out there. Still, I'd suggest starting with measurements and starting with room placement and treatment optimization.

 

The only way to know is to try a graphic equalizer. You did not state what you are using as a system, But, I know a graphic equalizer with less than great op-amps would ruin my tube system sound.

 

Front end Townshend Audio Universal Disc Player,
Townshend Allegri + autotransformer passive pre,
Nord Acoustic class D monos
Soundlab Dynastats Hybrid Electrostatics all cabling is Townshend Fractal equipment sits on big 5 foot 4 shelve Copulare Rack with additional Townshend Audio Siesmic Isolation platforms,
Speakers are sitting on Townshend Seismic Podiums which are a massive upgrade to overall sound quality improvements.

 

Check into Lyngdorf products . I have the McIntosh MEN220 and it works extremely well.

 

I use an Emotiva XMC-1 preamp which has Dirac room correction software. It's amazing what it can do to help the sound, especially the low end. Tight, detailed, and fast is how I'd describe the low end with Dirac, not bloated or sloppy as many setups are.

My room is treated and sounds nice when I run the preamp in "reference stereo" mode, which has no room correction or bass management (so no sub). It simply passes the incoming analog signal along without messing with it. I can listen like this for maybe a record before missing the much wider/deeper sound stage and super tight bass that Dirac helps with.

With this said, I will agree with the above post about getting yourself a mic (calibrated from Cross Spectrum Labs) and spending some time to learn how to use Room EQ Wizard (REW). See what your room is actually doing to the sound and treat as needed, then get into room correction software if you're still interested. I think REW can still be downloaded for free from htshack.com. Lots of helpful people are at that site to get you started. There will be a time commitment here if you really want to learn but the results are well worth it in my opinion.

 

As has been said, you should do the following:

1. Get the best position in your room for speakers and ears (listening chair).
2. Install room treatment.
3. Finish off with careful EQ/DSP.

To do all this to the best you need to measure what is going on. REW has been mentioned. I use that. There is other software, and other ways - test tones and ears, or an SPL meter, but software is the most accurate. There's a lot to learn but it will tell you what your problems are (you will have problems even if you are not obviously aware of them). It can also be used as you change things, rooms, house etc. so it has a long term use.

What EQ/DSP should you use. Go digital for sure. I use a Behringer DEQ2496. Others use MiniDSP with Dirac, or the DEQX - the most sophisticated product it seems. If you eventually go the computer audio route, there is suitable software for that.

REW can tell you what filters to make for your EQ. I then made them manually on the Behringer which has led to good results.

EQ/DSP in my case is merely to give the final correction after positioning and room treatment. I don't use to correct deficiencies in recordings but they can do this. You can make different frequency response presets on the Behringer, MiniDSP and DEQX for example to cater for recordings light in bass say.

As an example, here is an REW graph that shows the 20-300Hz range after positioning and room treatment (lots of it), but before EQ (green), and then with the EQ filters in place (red).

 

+1 on the Behringer DEQ2496. It’s one of the best products Behringer makes.

 

I have been using some form of EQ or DSP for about 15-20 years now; I've tried both analog and digital (and I think digital has become the more transparent of the two).

There have been excellent points made by previous posters. I strongly agree with the recommendations to work on positioning (speakers and listener) first, then add room treatment, then consider EQ or automated room treatment. It is helpful to measure response when doing this -- otherwise, you can go in circles. And, I would add, measured response above ~300 Hz can be sensitive to slight changes in position, so I'd concentrate EQ efforts below 300-500 Hz.

When I first tried acoustic treatment (15 yr ago), I was astounded at how a few panels and a couple of large bass traps improved the sound. One major improvement is to cut down bass ringing (overhang) caused by room effects. Whether your Soundlabs, in your room, will benefit as much is an open question.

However, if acoustic treatment is out of the question for aesthetic reasons, DSP still can help.

TacT is long out of business. Lyngdorf was essentially their partner and has continued to develop automatic room correction. Besides them, there are products with EQ at different price points. For example, the new NAD C658 DAC/preamp/streamer with Dirac Live (US$1.6k); the Anthem STR DAC/preamp with Anthem's own room correction($4k); the DSPeaker X4 ($4k); Legacy Wavelet processor ($5k); Trinnov Amethyst ($10k); miniDSP SHD DAC/preamp ($1.3k), also with Dirac; and the upcoming replacement Classe Delta Pre DAC/preamp $10k), which (it's said) will have 36 points of parametric EQ available. (Prices approximate)

You have an extremely revealing system. You might need to try several makes and types of EQ to see if any work for you without changing the sound from what you like. We are IMO at the cusp of DSP that is completely transparent (except for desired effects), but I'm not sure that we're there yet -- I have not tried most of the newest products. As the graph posted by @Hipper suggests, in many systems (including mine), the added frequency smoothness provided by DSP can outweigh any drawbacks

 

Try a extra power amp & go active

 

I use Audyssey xt32 in my preamp to tie my 5.1 setup together. Without it, music is good, but not as clean as I like. With it on, plus dynamic eq, in multi channels stereo mode, all speakers and sub simply disappear. What I get is one Hugh coherent sound stage.

But as other said, get your positioning and sitting position correct first. No eq can cure a room null.

 

As mentioned above I have the Behringer DEQ2496 which has ten bands of digital parametric EQ (PEQ) for both left and right channels. I've had this for around fourteen years and it works well for me, sitting between my CD Transport and DAC and using balanced digital (XLR) ins and outs. I've used both the PEQ and Graphic EQ (GEQ) to get what I want.

Lately though I'm finding that a PEQ suits me best and I don't use the GEQ. However I'm also finding I want more than ten bands of PEQ, and perhaps even more exact control of the selected frequency. In the graph shown above in post 7, all ten bands were required to get that but I need more to correct above 200Hz. Of course I can do this with the GEQ but think it would be more accurate and easier with more bands of PEQ.

Therefore, is there a good quality digital PEQ which has, say, twenty or even thirty channels for both left and right, with balanced digital in and out (XLR)? I don't really want all the additions such as ADC and DAC.

 

You mean 20 or 30 points per channel? That would be an interesting piece of gear! Sorry to say, I'm not familiar with anything that has so many PEQ points per channel. Have you tried daisy-chaining a couple of the Behringer units? Since you are using digital ins and outs only, you'd not induce any extra conversions by doing that.

 

No I haven't but it's an interesting idea. I'll consider it thanks.

When I was looking up some of the machines you named I found this which may be useful to readers of this thread:

DSPeaker Anti-Mode X4

I couldn't resist contributing too!

 

Although i dont use my DSP very much i would not be without it. I have a few CDs and LPs that simply have issues with bass bloom due to the room. The DSP solves the issues without messing with sound quality. I have started to treat the room too and this helps a lot.

 

I have reports that it's a good solution. If you're using subs, you'd better like the DACs in it, as its digital output is 2-channel. I have no reason to believe the DAC in it isn't first-rate, but wouldn't it be nice to have options (i.e., a 4-ch digital out)?

 

I use two DEQX processors to correct speaker & sub drivers for time & phase alignment in a 2-channel stereo, 5-way system but find room treatment rather than room 'correction' to be more effective (however parametric eq is used sparingly to reduce one remaining 32hz peak).

In spite of the cost, I cannot fault DEQX. By far the most effective hifi components I have ever purchased.

 

Could I 'make' one using a software solution with a high number of PEQs on some sort of computer that could be put between my CD Transport and DAC.

Just thinking aloud!

 

Or do that AND dump the CD transport...

 

No EQ or additions...

 

I have found that proper speaker placement, a little room treatment, and some tube rolling is all that it is required to achieve amazing sound with my system.

 

Sure. JRiver Media Center is inexpensive and has very good DSP. I believe the number of PEQ points you can put in is unlimited. Their tech support ranges from hostile to mildly helpful, but it's likely you will never need it or another user can answer your question.

I don't know how I'd connect it between a CD transport and DAC, though. It works well if you have your CDs ripped.

Opinions vary, but I prefer hardware solutions (like your Behringer). Though they are more expensive and less flexible in some ways, they are less likely to be problematic to configure if you have several sources.

 

My 10 dollar special i picked up!

You can all laugh as much as you want, I know!
A bit off topic, but i put this guy between my turntable and amplifier, works a charm!
As you guys know, vinyl EQ and balance varies, so a little help from this guy really
polishes up a flat, dull record.
Surprised me, I bought it to maybe tinker with or for parts..... or something......horting?...
a 'why did i buy this?' a day later moment?........
Cleaned the faders with DeOxit, and BAM!
Great little piece of junk.

 

Have used DBX - worked well (Part of an Emerald physics CS2 speaker system)
After more than 30 speakers and a greater number of amps and DACs I got a low cost 31 channel equaliser - worked well to help fill the bass holes that my listening room suffers from.
Currently use Genelecs on board room correction. Magic system with correct room positioning the Genelecs are flat to 23hz.
Thoroughly recommend room correction or an equaliser if you are not happy with how a system presents the music.

 

Actually I have a PC based headphone system with my ripped CDs, using JRiver, and was aware of its PEQ capabilities - I don't use this EQ with headphones though. As you say though, it's placing it between the CD Transport and DAC that's the issue.

I have thought of using this PC in place of the CD Transport and Behringer EQ, using some sort of bridging device. I haven't got round to it yet though. I like the flexibility of using the PC, especially the thought of random playing of my whole music collection and easier ways to make playlists then CD-R burning. It's one of my projects to be done 'sometime'.

My CD Transport and DAC are good ones and I'm reluctant to lose one or both, but I should give it a try.