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What's more important in a difficult room, room correction or higher, clean, power?

My listening space is a 13 x 10 former spare bedroom that is used as my hobby space and office and is a really difficult space because of the contents in the room. My speakers are parallel to the long wall.

My current rig includes a Peachtree Nova 150 integrated, Elac Debut B6.2 speakers, U-Turn Orbit turntable with Ortofon red cartridge running through the Peachtree's phono input, Music Hall C-DAC 15.3 and a Furman Elite 15 power conditioner.

I have an Elac subwoofer on order that I purchased during what must have been an unadvertised flash sale on their website at a great price and it includes room correction. I purchased this particular sub because of the room correction feature in the hopes that it will result in a better, smoother, fuller, sound.

The sub got me thinking that perhaps an amp that also supports room correction might be helpful in my space and one that I'm considering in the Elac EA101EQ-G integrated amp. However, the specs on this amp aren't as good as my Peachtree and, frankly, I like the Peachtree but I'm thinking that there could be something better out there.

I'd be interested to hear from those of you that have take the room correction plunge and what you think. Also, given the choice between more power/better specs or room correction with less power, is there a preferred path?
rfross

Showing 3 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,107 posts
 
If you use a distributed bass array such as the Swarm, standing waves are eliminated and get get much more even bass throughout the room, not just at the listening chair.

Years ago I did a Stereophile show in NYC. We had room correction and also a standing wave that was killing the bass at the listening chair. Now to be clear all room correction does is generate an EQ curve such that you get flat response at the microphone location. So if there is a dip in the bass as might be seen with a standing wave in the room, the room correction will simply demand more power of the amps at the bass frequency dip. It really doesn't matter how much power you put into it; if a standing wave is present the dip **will** persist. Once I realized that I also realized that our room correction (Accuphase) was simply causing coloration at other frequencies; as soon as we removed it the system sounded more transparent and neutral. In the end we simply lived with the standing wave.

That was before DBAs (Distributed Bass Arrays) were available. Up until I heard what the Swarm (which is the first application of this principle that I know of) actually did I really had no time for subs as it was so difficult to get them to blend since the bass was different depending on where you were in the room. The Swarm DBA system won me over to subs.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,107 posts
 
The problem with room treatment is the amount of it you need to treat low frequencies, that's where I think DSP can be useful.
This is also where a distributed bass array like the Swarm is helpful.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,107 posts
 
I'm not a fan of room correction. The reason is most often what is going on is a standing wave which no amount of correction will fix.

You can kill a standing wave by using a distributed bass array. The best example of this is the Swarm made by Audiokinesis. The Swarm is four subs designed to sit right against the walls. You place them asymmetrically about the room; in this way they produce consistent bass across the spectrum regardless of where you are in the room.


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