Automatic Room Correction has won the Subwoofer Wars

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.

Room correction has not won the subwoofer wars.

What it has done, is that it has subverted high quality acoustics application, room design, and system builder's base level skills, to being  'good enough for Mr Average'. Good enough for those who won't do it right, or can't do it right.

It has dropped the annoyance factor for those who are not going to ever be doing it right.
It is NOT correct, I repeat, NOT correct. 

It's akin to all the nannies and electronic additions to modern supercars, so that Mr average to poor driver can drive a $500k super or hyper car and PRETEND that they can drive.

It won the popularity contest for the middle of the audiophile herd who play in the home theater space. Nothing else.

Don't anyone here fool themselves into thinking it is anything else.

It's not a peak, not a note on perfection, it is the opposite, it is annoyance relief, it's a comfortable hole in the ground to circle around, like circling a drain....