Subwoofers with room correction built in?

@twoleftears yeah, that review got me thinking about this concept again... I found it quite encouraging, but wanted a bigger sub that I could get a deal on.

@oldhvymech - my DIY skills are pretty limited so far, but I'm sure this would be a worthwhile approach.

@erik_squires thanks. I know JL is the real deal, but I have high hopes for the elac due to Andrew Jones involvement. 

It's good to know that there are external DSPs that can be had for reasonable prices, but right now I'm primarily interested in hearing from those who have had subs w/ the feature built in.  Anybody else care to share?

@docknow and @doctors11 -- I hadn’t considered a Martin Logan sub -- thanks for the tip. Glad to hear the room correction is seriously helpful.  Interestingly, the balanced force sub has two drivers in opposition like the elac.

@golfnuts - I’ll check out REW, but was hoping to keep it even simpler first…

@jrpnde - I’ve had subs in my system before, but that was before I had my system dialed in he way it is now.  I had in order rel t9i and rythmik 15, both nice subs, but manual adjustments were just too much trouble, even after taking a methodical approach. My current speakers are great (graham audio ls5/5), but I want the full dynamics in the music to come through as much as possible.  The built-in sub EQ seemed ideal to save some hassle this go-round.  Found a great deal on the Elac, would have considered some of the others mentioned here so far as well.  If you want to know more, see my system page.

@pedroeb - that b&w software looks great. Hadn’t seen that one before.

@deadhead - I just didn’t want to spend the $ for JL right now, but I know it’s got a well regarded DSP.  Maybe someday.

@bigwave thanks for the heads up about this brand, even though they're currently out of commission

@audioquest4life the elac EQ uses your smartphone mic, but directs you to take a nearfield and then a listening position recording by which to calculate the frequency curve. i’ve seen it demonstrated online and it seems pretty snappy. and yes, velodyne is a little under the radar, but they seem like they mean business with regards to subwoofers. they’ve been doing this built-in EQ for a while it seems.

@mijostyn

The absolute best way of going about this is to get a DSP preamp like the MiniDSP , Anthem STR or DEQX Premate

I have a great dac and preamp and don’t want to do the ADC and DAC through these alternate components for my full signal path. If it was just in the path between my preamp and sub, it would be more appealing. we’ll see how the elac’s EQ does by itself first, but I’m open to tweaks.  This is an interesting option from Underwood hifi by DSpeaker:  8033 SII subwoofer equalizer.  Just for the subwoofer.  

@m-db thanks for the encouragement!  Rarer on these forums than it could be.

Well, I'm a few days into using my new Elac 3070.  The auto-eq feature smooths things out a little, but in my room it does not appear to make all that much of a difference.  The room has rarely caused me problems with other gear and setups.  Overall, love the app-based interface of this subwoofer but most of all the excellent bass foundation it provides.  Currently crossing over the sub at about 60-70hz with my my Graham Audio LS5/5s.