TacT, Lyngdorf, Audyssey Pre/Pro, PARC?

You guys have convinced me (also some other professional reviews) -- the idea that you go with a computer's auto-correction and then stop seems a bit antithetical to this hobby.

Many/most of us who psot here try lots of things and go to a lot of effort to get sound that sounds good to us. Even those who eschew endless audiophile tweaking have likely spent serious time and money getting to the point where they are ready to leave it all alone and just listen to the music. Since tweaking the settings on an EQ is a lot easier (physically that is) and less expensive than (e.g.) buying, burning in, and swaping back and forht between cables, it seems that we should be willing to do this to optimize sound so that it is what we want to hear.

Dgaylin

Gongrats and happy shopping!

Note that KR's observation re: the SMS' auto-correct shortcomings suggest that you might want to seek out a unit that provides both superior auto-correct AND a read-out for manual tweaking. This way, you'll start tweaking from a (presumably) better starting point and save yourself some time/effort. One of the earlier posts here implied -I think - that Audyssey Pro does the trick.

Another advantage of "seeing the room" for me was observing the large "hump" in my room from app 75hz to app 125 hz. This caused a higher than optimal X-over point at the SMS' built in 80hz highpass point. A pair of Bass Busters proved a great (I do mean great) fix.

Thus I'd still go for manual + superior auto if I could. If you can't find such an animal, the SMS-1 is a great tool at a fair price. I get pretty amazing results in my room with any of the main speakers I've tried - Verity Parsifal Monitors, Sunfire Cinema Ribbon Monitors, Maggie SMGs, and Ohm 100s. As KR noted, though, The SMS' high pass x-over has limitations. If you do go with an SMS, Id suggest that you either use mains that are happy being crossed at 80hz, or mains that you run full range. Otherwise, you might need an external high pass.

Another idea to bear in mind. My Velo subs don't perform nearly as well as the similarly priced SVS subs (they're much smaller, though). There's some debate on the sub threads on A-Gon as to which spec is more telling for a sub: "group delay" or "distortion". I don't have the knowledge to take a side here, but I'd note the $600/per model from SVS does a very good job on both tests.

At the end of the day, if you're willing to do the work, I suspect that the SMS, a bass buster (or 2), good subs, and good main speakers can provide amazing returns on your loudspeaker investment. In my case, $600 (for 2 bass busters, $600 for an SMS-1, and $1200 (for 2 SPLR8 subs) provide great bass performance and virtually seamless integration with a variety of different main speakers (dipole planars, omnis, and traditional dynamic minimonitors among them). At $2400 plus mains of your choice, I suspect that this deal is hard to beat.

Marty

BTW, if you have the space available, the SVS subs wil smoke the Velos (on paper, anyway) at the same price. Alas, at the time of purchase, I didn't have the space.

Marty

BTW, one advantage of any EQ or measurement system that has a good display is that you can use it to optimize sub placement and to view the effects of acoustical treatements. Not an insignificant feature.

Kal

"Lyngdorf broke away from TacT. How are these two systems different? Better, worse? There is some concern that DACs in the TacT units are not wonderful, so better to use an external DAC?"

The Lyngdorf RCS offers only analog inputs/outputs and has a limited number of target curves. I don't think the Lyngdorf RCS has a GUI.

TacT RCS has analog and digital inputs/outputs and a wide range of target curves with the ability for user modification. The TacT RCS 2.2X & XP also provide digital crossovers for the integration of subs. The XP adds DRC, XTC, Variable correction and some other new features.

TacT performance can be improved with some upgrades offered by Aberdeen Components/Maui Mods.