I just read an interesting article at Secrets of Home Theater about Auto Equalization . I'm going to have to go through it a bit more to digest all the details, but it does a good job of describing the potential pitfalls of blindly trusting many of the automatic EQ packages available in receivers these days. It's worth a read.

That is a good article, though the advice given at the conclusion ("fiddle a little bit here and there") isn't very helpful. However, the article does help in understanding why some auto-EQ systems (Meridian, Audyssey, Lexicon, H/K) do not attempt to flatten the frequency response.

Good read Gonk! People need to realize there is no substitute for room treatment. They can EQ until they are blue in the face, but it isn't going to fix large issues. I wish I could easily take my panels off and put them back on again. I would invite people over to listen both ways.

The result of the panels is VERY dramatic. They take the room from reflective, washy, and sounds thrown together to sounding darn good and separated. I think WAF is in the way of things here as well. Ideally this should be done at the design stage of a dedicated room, but if you end up like me...you just have panels hanging all over the walls/ceiling.

I'll stick to acoustic panels and sub location and use EQ as the finishing touch. This article got things right on acoustics instead of clouding the issue.

I think the problem with room treatment is you don't know where to start. What do I do, buy a whole bunch of panels and start hanging them by educated guess work? Hire a Feng Shui guy to come over and tell me where to hang them. Hire a guy with $100,000 worth of equipement to measure my room and mark the exact spots where they go? Where do you start on a project like this? Of course a padded cell may be my best option at this point.

A good place to start is with bass traps in corners and absorbers at the first reflection points. Just that little bit will help smoothen out low frequencies and clarify imaging in the front soundstage.

Yes, but all the bass traps I have seen are ugly and would not pass the WAF test. First Reflection points? Where are they? The coffee table, the end tables, the back wall? And to add to the problem there are a lot of people selling these room mods, frames stuffed with fabric, for a lot of money. Which means that you have to do a DIY, which then complicates the problem further, which is why no one does it.

First reflection points are easy to find: just have someone slide a mirror along the side wall until you can see your front speakers. Mark that spot and place absorbtion there.

Bass traps are easy and cheap to make. There are recipes on various websites for everything from cylindrical traps to flat ones than can stradle corners (where pressure builds up the most).

However, if you can come up with all those excuses to not use treatments, then I can't fight them all. The excuses win. Room treatments aren't for you.

I couldn't agree with you more! Room treatments can also be more subtle, such as furniture, and soft wall coverings or objects in the right places that are also works of art, etc ...

If you can defeat the major acoustical challenges in a room through passive room correction techniques, the opportunity for using accurate analysis of a RTA and signal processing can bring you a long way to overall sonic balance, with more than a single seat sweet spot. and... not all reflected sound is bad.

There not just my execuses, there everyones execuses. My point was that this is why very few people, except those rare individual such as yourselves, attempt these types of projects.

To me, if I am going to go to the amount of trouble your talking about I might as well just remove all the dry wall and replace it will some QuietRock . Then EQ from there. I am not sure if I want various odd objects hanging around on the walls and corners that take up space and have little visual appeal.

I'm with you, MeanGene. I'd have to run it through my household architectural committee's (read: WAF) stringent regulations in order to implement any such treatments, and believe me, that's some tough stuff. While some folks I know can change room decor at will (and some of them have just thrown framed batting on the wall), I'd have to hire an interior designer to pass muster in my domicile.

Maybe when I have a dedicated HT in my home...