Automatic Room Correction has won the Subwoofer Wars

We got here by Duke pointing out that consumer room correction, at least currently, (to our knowledge) does not take into account reflected/directly energy when doing level balancing, and hence while it can correct for phase/amplitude, it lacks a degree of freedom in setup.

Ahhh.  Well, Toole dislikes them, but I think that over the last decade it's gotten better. 

Personally, I do all my own EQ.  However!!!! Teaching a noob is a lot of work, and a lot of debate and a lot of different answers. 

ARC I think, over the last few years, has gotten better, and yields better than average audiophile results.

Could Duke or myself do better by hand?  Absolutely.

TBC:  "By hand" I meant with measurement tools and adjusting ourselves instead of letting an automated system do it.

I certainly don't think anyone can configure a sub properly without measurement devices and experience.

Duke, you a obviously have not spent much time with one of the better digital management systems. You are making assumptions that may not be correct. I posted my system with details that help understand it. It works, Not just a little either. You can not tell there are subs in the system until a real low note comes along. The tonal balance doesn’t change with volume. Imaging is superior to anything you have ever heard because the frequency response of both sides is exactly the same.
Once you use a system like this there is no going back, it is that extreme.

Mike

Digital room control is not an excuse to neglect sensible acoustic treatments like damping early reflection points and using multiple subwoofer systems to control nodal behavior. The better your room is designed the better digital room control works.

Erik, measuring and creating correction filters manually is all but impossible. Check out my system’s page and I think you will get the picture. Designing target curves is easy to do manually as I demonstrated. Measurement curves are very complex. The computer can calculate a correction filter instantly where I do not think anyone could do it that accurately in days if at all. You are talking about thousands of corners each one having to be set manually. Just doing subs is a lot easier but you miss out on a world of incredible imaging as well as other advantages by not going full range.