Auto Room Equalization?

Hey Bob, that signature is crucial, no doubt. Maybe the Auto EQ is really crucial in oddly shaped listening environments. Vaulted ceilings, hallways, staircases, side rooms . . . I have them all in my primary space . . . a nightmare! A smaller and more enclosed environment does, hopefully, save that designed sound of the equipment. Thanks for your thoughts.

As close to a flat response in the specific room is what it provides.

My understanding is that equalizing to flat response at the listening position is generally undesirable, and will generally result in excessive brightness. For example, the following statement is provided in the manual for the DEQX HDP-5 which I use in my system, which among many other things provides a very flexible and manually adjustable room correction function:

Room measurements typically exhibit a downward “tilt” from low bass to high treble of 6 up to 15 dB. This is caused by a number of factors including reduced dispersion and greater absorption in the room at high frequencies. Do not attempt to EQ your room measurement completely flat – that will most likely sound overly bright.

Also, when I purchased the DEQX the extremely knowledgeable dealer I purchased it from (Nyal Mellor of AcousticFrontiers.com) advised me to not mess very much with the natural high frequency rolloff of my speakers. He said that despite not having much if any knowledge of my particular speakers.

How is that unique equipment personality preserved in an always imperfect listening environment?

A factor in that may be that our hearing mechanisms give greater emphasis to first arriving sounds than to later arriving instances of the same sound. Probably not for the entire frequency spectrum, depending on the amount of delay, but at least for significant parts of it given typical in-room delays between direct vs. reflected arrival times.

Regards,
-- Al

Frequency response is but one item on a very long list of things we can hear. My impression is its like megapixels. Megapixels don't matter. Or rather, so many things matter so much more that how many megapixels a camera has is simply not relevant to taking good pictures. Frequency response is exactly like this. Only people with a rather cursory knowledge put much stock in either.

The only thing worse I guess would be automatic room correction. To continue the camera metaphor, that would be like buying the latest greatest most megapixel'd camera you can find, then shooting everything on Auto.

A little knowledge, etc, etc.

Mc, I think you have some misconceptions and confused analogies, similes and metaphors. Frequency and Amplutide  IS Audio and  IS Paramount, no squeaking out of that one. Pixel resolution is like a bit rate on digital audio and the higher you get, the better you can sound, this is important, very. You talk about taking a good picture, and that is a metaphor for source material, not projection of sound. You speak a much bit of untruth and bad comparison and very much off topic. However, Thanks for the input.

Mc, please back up your statements with something solid. A straight discussion of the topic. Bring knowledge and elucidate the crowd.