Manual EQ is better than Auto Correction. Plus, I suspect that in the end the microphone just doesn’t interpret our systems the way our ears do...and it might not really matter what measurement parameter you care to talk about: frequency, time, phase, dynamics, distortion, etc, etc...our ears will just hear things differently. Not saying that there’s no insight to gain from that, just that the idea and the act of simply attempting to defer to the mike in the long run is folly. Our ears will always have the final say.
What I don’t like about Auto Correction also is that the algorithm used is necessarily stupid. It doesn’t know much about your room or even much about its acoustics and nothing at all about the abilities of your system. Its decisions about which frequencies should be boosted and which should be cut are all carried out blindly to what your system’s response in fact may or may not be capable of. Many systems are at least fairly efficient at reproducing mids or highs, but, as Al rightly alludes to above, many comparatively struggle with bass efficiency - in any room. That can be attributable to a lot of different things like: woofer efficiency at lower frequencies, setup position, amp type and design, power treatments, wiring and much more...and no, whether or not your speaker or gear says it’s rated to such-and-such frequency at +or- whatever has nothing at all to do with it. But, the problem is that stupid algorithm doesn’t know how to apply any "cut-only" strategy in order to flatten, IME. It only knows how to misapply the EQ (boost and cut), no matter who made the algorithm or how whiz-bang it’s said to be.
Note that it’s far more common, IMO and FWIW, that Most systems have Much more trouble with bass efficiency (again, in Any room) compared to the rest of the spectrum than don’t. Even with like 70 or 80% of the subs out there. My point with that is that some systems, despite what their owners may feel they understand about them, may not have yet evolved to the point of being in possession of enough efficiency across the board to have the reserve of bass energy it might take to more successfully apply a cut-only strategy to not only tame the response through the low end, but still audibly have proper amp and speaker headroom at all volume levels after it’s done. Remember: EQ itself is just a command - your system has to be up the task of answering it...and preferably, it should be a little **more** than up to that task, not just adequately so...certainly if you're going to use it to boost, that is.
With Auto Correction, you get flattened response whether your system sounds better with it or not. You might can tweak it some, but it’s still a tweak on EQ that’s been misapplied...at that point you’re putting a bandaid on a bandaid.
Personally, for myself I prefer straight, digital, parametric, Manual EQ...no chaser. But, even for manual EQ, the more efficient in the bass I can make my system to begin with, the better the EQ results will sound to the ear. (Old EQ axiom: you can’t boost what isn’t there).
My two cents.
Regards
