Parametric / graphic equalizer recommendations

Cdc, I am actually a proponent of audiophiles not being afraid to get aquainted with equalizers, but I don't recommend employing one as a permanent system fixture to try and tailor overall response. (There may be an exception to this in the digital response correction components made by companies like TACT and Z-Systems, but while I don't have experience with these, they are intended to perform a somewhat different job than what you describe, go about performing that job in a much different fashion, and of course cost a whole lot more.) In my experience, keeping conventional analog EQ engaged at all times will cause more problems than it might seem to solve at first blush. I would strongly suggest attempting to correct your system's overall balance at a more fundamental level.

However, don't let that discourage you from getting an inexpensive unit to play around with and test my contention. To answer some of your questions, yes, you will want a stereo unit. One of the things you can find out about messing around with a stereo EQ is just how differently two speakers in two different locations respond. Besides that, one of the more legitamate uses for an EQ - helping out seriously flawed software sources for listening or dubbing - can require different settings for each channel of a stereo program. In any case, you'll have a tougher time trying to find a mono unit regardless.

I can't tell you about the brands you link to (or, I'm afraid, any others available today, except to suggest you don't overlook consulting with a pro studio sound retailer), but if you go graphic, you may well find 10 bands to be too few. 31 can be overkill or inconvenient, but I would go with at least 15. I prefer parametric myself for its ultimate flexibility and ease of rapid adjustment, but it can be a little hard to find a true full-parametric unit (that is, with fully variable control over bandwidth, or "Q", as well as over band-center frequency and cut/boost amplitude - many are "quasi-parametric" instead) that has the necessary three or four bands per channel, plus "shelving" switches for the top and bottom bands. Graphic models can also be easier to learn on, due to their visual representation of the adjusted curve. In either case, try to find a unit that has an overall output level control to maintain unity gain at extreme settings or for comparitive purposes (in addition to the de riguer "defeat" switch), along with loop out/in and monitor switch facilities for recording applications.

Have fun if you get one, but I'll mention these words of personal wisdom:
>Don't expect an EQ to completely or accurately fix what you perceive to be wrong with your sound.
>Whatever good it can do, expect to pay a price in other areas, and it may be heavier.
>As my system got better over the years, I found I had less and less call to ever employ either one of my two equalizers for normal listening, even with poor source material. This is not entirely a matter of not needing to correct for non-flat response, either; many of the perceived problems I no longer am troubled by have as much to do with reducing other kinds of distortions as they do with eliminating gross frequency response errors - and I don't even have an acoustically-treated room. It is quite possible that your room-treatment has only served to even more fully reveal some basic system flaws which EQ will not correct for (I say this advisedly, without knowing what your system consists of). My EQ's have been steadily relegated by my improving system to just very ocassional diagnostic or dubbing duty, to the general benefit of the sound, and I no longer miss the tone controls of yore even on the majority of shoddily recorded or mastered material (more true of analog than digital, though). This has proven to me that transparency, cleanliness, and inherent neutrality, from the speakers right back to the AC power and including all the electronics and cables in between, are paramount to forcebly induced "flat" response for the attaining of natural listenability.

Whew! Have you been to an ear doctor? (I'm serious.) It seems very unlikely to me that your stereo caused this problem, but if I were you I'd certainly want to find out what did, and what I could do about it.

Your concern is not with "good" sound in the home, but with sound that is personally tolerable to you. If a boombox with the treble turned down can give you pain, an EQ may not help you much with your system. You need to get some auditory testing done. No one wants you to "turn your room into an anechoic chamber", and besides it seems as if you have already gone a long way towards that end. Attenuating the treble may do something, but it won't make your CD's sound like a live orchestra - the differences you heard have as much to do with the effects of mic'ing as they do with your system's balance or the CD medium.

To address your specific questions from above:

1) A parametric EQ will work fine on high frequencies. I think you may be misunderstanding what Rives is getting at with his description of his company's device. It sounds like a brilliant bit of applied engineering to me, but in any case not what you are after here. It is designed to deal with bass frequency room modes specifically.

2) Nothing is "bad" about graphic EQ for your application. In fact, a graphic model might well be the easiest thing to try out in order to satisfy your curiousity.

You are obviously not primarily concerned with "audiophile-approved" solutions, and besides it's not at all clear that there will even be a satisfactory solution to your dilemma. It would be easy to say, with the benefit of hindsight, that a B&W/Musical Fidelity system probably wasn't the best choice for your particular set of ears in your small room, but that's no guarantee you'd feel very much differently had you bought something like a tube electronics/electrostatic speaker system or a SET/small monitor system instead, or even purged your CD's and went all-analog. The devices you are looking at are relatively cheap, so buy one and do some experimenting if you like, but by all means get yourself to a specialist who might be able to help you with your fundamental auditory issue. Best of luck to you!