Sorry for the delayed response; shopping and all. What difference does that make? The style of the writing is not important; it's the content that matters. If Meridian is presenting lies as facts, point them out. That's a complaint? Is there a reason why basic concepts should not be explained in that paper? "Admit"? You make it sound like they were grudgingly forced to concede something there were trying to hide from readers. Hardly. They describe the limitation of using an inverse curve in order to explain why that technique isn't employed for their automatic room correction. They have no interest in a correction system that results in improvements at only one listening location. Because they're trying to address unwanted contributions from the room, not the voicing of a speaker. A bump at 50Hz can be the result of deliberate speaker design or caused by boundry gain. That's why they don't correct it. It would be like full-range room correction that compensated for a treble roll-off designed into a particular speaker. If I bought a speaker specifically for its warm sound, I wouldn't want that sound to be "corrected". Better instead to deal with what they know the room is adding (e.g., reverberation) instead of something that may be part of the speaker design. Again, this isn't something that Merdian was trying to hide from readers. They've been very clear about what their room correction system does: address long decay times for frequencies below 250Hz. They've never pretended otherwise. Not all peaks. That's what differentiates it from many other automatic room correction systems. The SMS-1 has an operating range of 15Hz-200Hz, but for a single channel only. Since low frequencies (and their associated problems) aren't limited to the just the subwoofer, MRC is applied to all channels. It doesn't average the samples because a peak and a dip can cancel each other out when added, giving the impression that there isn't a problem when in fact there are two problems. None of the better automatic room correction systems (Audyssey, H/K, Lexicon, Meridian) use averaging when correlating data from different listening locations. MRC also doesn't attack every peak under 250Hz, only ones with long reverberation times. Wow, you say that like it's a bad thing. Would that every electronic device were designed with such a goal in mind. Oh that wasn't what my illustration pointed out. I was comparing Rodin to other sculptors, not some automated sculpting device. The point being that few individuals amongst their contemporaries are capable of creating better results using the same tool. But let's use your version of the analogy and try to create better results than a computer program (i.e., let's take the "automatic" out of automatic room correction).

Help me out here...exactly how does they typical SMS-1 owner become the Rodin of electronic room correction and digital PEQ programming?

Never mind what a digital PEQ may be capable of, exactly how do us consumers amass the knowledge needed to take proper measurements, build appropriate filters and apply them; all in a way that results in improvements at more than one single listening location?

Meanwhile, Happy Holidays to you and your's.

Thanx for the correction about Rodin. I'll keep Michelangelo in mind next time.

Merry Christmas.

That's the point behind the automatic room correction systems. The better ones were designed by people that are some of the most knowledgeable in the field of acousitics. The goal isn't perfection, just better results than the typical consumer would get on their own using a digital parametric equalizer.

Actually, the SMS-1 goes from either 5Hz or 15Hz (depending on the firmware version) to 120Hz - the display goes to 200Hz, but the EQ's can't operate above 120.

I know this thread is dead, but I have to say that was the most ridiculous over the top comparison I have ever read.

This is to mktheater, I personally have heard the Meridian 861 and the Outlaw audio 990, and there is no way in heck you can possibly compare the meridian to either of these two. You sound like you work for Outlaw audio and are part of the marketing team because I blind tested this thing with 12 other people in the room and the 990 didn't even compare. The meridian was several cuts above. You're comparing a $20k preamp to a sub $2k preamp. I know this is all subjective, but one can definitely tell when a preamp sounds monumentally better than another. Its like saying a stock Subaru WRX STi blew away a bugatti Veron in a drag race with 2 competent drivers.Even at its basic settings it blew away the 990. We tested it on different types of apeakers, using Magenpan, Paradigm, and Mirage OMD. Then after 4-5 hours of setting it up with a professional which is what its made for, because there a MANY MANY different options for customizing the sound it further smoked the 990. I would say the 990 is the best $7.5k value wise. But to compare it to a meridian is just downright ridiculous.