Looking for recommendations to use Rives Audio ...

I'm in the midst of room construction via Rives. They know what they're doing and offer tailored advice. I doubt you would get similarly fastidious attention elsewhere.

"Was it worth the expense?"

You will have to evaluate your system and your future plans goals to know if the services are worth the expense as far as maximizing your system. E.g. if you've got a $1k pair of minimonitors (their basic analysis is like $800) and you're going to be moving anyhow or have a bad room I wouldn't do it. So "to try do it myself" isn't a bad idea depending on your system. It never hurts to educate yourself as much as possible and I think you can certainly get results on your own (through careful speaker/listener placement and liberal amounts of acoustic treatment). If you've got some big dollars in your rig then the services would most likely be worth it and the pros will probably do a better job. Especially when it comes to acoustic treamtent. Rules of thumb (foam at first reflection points) will get you some mileage but for serious acoustic treatment if the room isn't measured you'll probably be wasting money on things that aren't helping. Measuring rooms is important because its almost impossible to write an equation for every conceivable thing in your room (whether or not your walls have standard studs or box bracing, floor materials, windows, etc.)

Look at your system, your goals with it (are you going to upgrade speakers later), and how much money you plan to invest total.

Rives Audio is owned and operated by one of the long-time Audiogon "regulars", and I have always found his comments to be technically sound and helpful.

I recently purchased the "Rives Audio Test CD", which is used to test your room acoustics to see where there are peaks and valleys in the frequency response curve. There are 2 sets of frequency sweeps (each with 32 frequencies), and one of the sets of tones is specifically calibrated for use with the Radio Shack analog SPL meter. The test disk, with shipping, is about $20, and is an excellent tool for evaluating your room's acoustics.

I suggest you buy the Rives test CD (and the Radio Shack SPL meter, if you don't already own it), and evaluate your room. Then you can talk to Rives directly to determine if their PARC analog equalizer can improve the frequency response in your room, or whether you will need more sweeping changes.

I'm in the process of building a dedicted listening room and am using Rives. I'm in the early stages of the construction segment, but my experience with Rives is similar to gladstone above: very knowledgeable and helpful. My room designs are top shelf.When the room is done I plan on posting the results. I'd give them a call and discuss your options with Richard.

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I think that I will give them a try.