digital eq/room correction trade-offs


I am very confused about digital room correction.

For many years, it seemed the common wisdom was to have as clean a signal path as possible, with as little processing and as few conversions as possible: use a high quality DAC to get the signal to analog and then a pure pre-amp/amp to speakers.

But it now seems that many would argue that the benefits of digital eq are such that even an extra analog-digital-analog step is worth it for the benefits of digital room eq.

So, for example, I enjoy listening to CDs and SACDs using my Bel Canto PL-1A. I go analog out to my pre-amp. Is it worth it to contemplate the extra step of analog to digital for room EQ and then back to analog to the pre? I find it hard to believe that any benefits of the room EQ won't be substantially offset by the additional conversions.

Your thoughts most appreciated. Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that my room is imperfect but not horribly so (which I think is accurate).
dgaylin

Showing 3 responses by dgaylin

Thanks Kirkus and Samujohn. I agree that it's all signal processing and it's all how well you can use the tool. I guess my thinking is that these systems are supposed to self-configure, but my understanding is that they don't do that very well. So you end up tweaking them. And even with lots of experience running mixing boards in live sound situations, I'm not convinced that I wouldn't just be winging it with these new systems. Not to mention the problems introduced with additional jitter as the signal gets switched back and forth from digital to analog to digital to analog.

To Samujohn's point -- I get the idea of elimminating an analog stage and going with a digital pre, but that's going pretty far out on a limb before I even know what the technology can do, and given how many more options there are for nice analog pre's versus the handful of digital ones. The answer is probably a home audition of one of these systems to see how it works for me...
Well, I asked, I should be prepared to suffer the consequences! Thanks to all for the info and suggestions. Now I guess I get to go on one of these escapades that we all do in this hobby to try out the new thing!
Thanks again everyone! any thoughts on TacT versus Lyngdorf versus some of the RCS systems built in on the newer pre/pros (Anthem D2, Integra 9.9, Classe)?