Room correction EQs with omnidirectional speakers?

Where is Rives?? he is the man and makes a product similar called the PARC which seems to yield great results, but omnidirectional speakers are always a challenge- though often worth the fruits of your labor in the end.

Here are I am. Sorry for the delay. The PARC is designed to do exactly what you are interested in. As a company we direct all of our energy towards the acoustical environment. The PARC is an answer to the one problem that frequently yields very difficult, elaborate, and costly solutions--namely how do you deal with the bass room interaction. The potential solutions are: move walls so that the mode spacing is good, build in Helmhotz resonators, use a wall of bass traps, or use a device like the PARC. The PARC deals only with bass modes. It is fully analog and therefore does not corrupt the signal with an A/D or D/A conversion. It has 3 bands per channel that are full adjustable in terms of center frequency, width of band, and attenuation level. As to how it works with Omni directional speakers--the same as directional, probably better because they have a tendency to excite room modes more than directional counterparts. I would strongly urge you to work on speaker placement for the flattest response first, this will make using any correction device easier and more effective. To see more about the PARC please go to http://www.rivesaudio.com/PARC or call us.

Rives answer (self-promotion notwithstanding :-) seems comprehensive as far as it goes, but in regards to the original question, I would point out that all dynamic speakers, except those specifically configured as dipole bass radiators (rare), are functionally omnidirectional at low frequencies. The Shahinians, of course, diverge from the norm in being configured to approximate an omnidirectional radiator at mid and high frequencies as well, a range the PARC device is not intended to address, unlike some of the units asked about. I agree with Rives that a dedicated, measurement-calibratable room-correction EQ device should be usable with speakers having any characteristic radiation pattern, omni included, and that such a device may be at its most useful with just such a speaker, as room interaction will be even greater than with conventional designs (but that's just an opinion based on theory, not experience ;^). He'd also probably tell you that at the frequencies above those dealt with be his PARC product, some judicious acoustical wall-treatments may be the first way to go with omni's, and he'd probably be right...

Zaikesman--you're right. The PARC only operates up to 350 Hz, and we recommend that it not be used above 200 Hz. Above that frequency you really don't want to mess with the signal electrically and passive wall treatment absorbers and diffusors is absolutely the way to go. As I said, the PARC is designed for the one problem that frequently does not have very practical solutions--namely the bass boom.