That audiophile might had some bad experience with damping materials/panels since lot of them have not full-range damping character so they will affect frequency spectrum like a badly used equaliser or for example DSPs can cause audible ringing, "euphoria" or loss of low frequency details in the music without proper use.
I don’t think he is right when refuse room correction, no other way to solve acoustic problems because of the following reasons, IMO.
If you measure acoustic of a room you will find 12-15 dB amplification/attenuation on some low frequencies coming from the speaker position and the size of the room. You can use bass traps (looks not too pretty in a living room) or digital equaliser like Allo USBridge Signature which is a streamer/DSP for 300$. It can solve bad room problem at low frequencies but a good speaker itself does not, since room self frequencies coming from the room size, for example the average 2.7m room height cause a standing wave around 63Hz. (voice speed in air about 340m/s, 2.7m is the half size of the 63Hz wave).
Other problem is speakers are not linear in full range, it is true for the best designs as well, so digital equaliser improve performance for all speakers. With good speakers it is possible to equalise flat sound character between 20-20000Hz, if you give up some power.
Third is the room ringing time/reflections. It is something what you can might solve with directional speakers partially, but for good result you need some (full range, except low frequencies) damping material. Damping panels will not destroy the audio quality if they have proper characteristic. I have only 4+1 nice looking panels (plus carpet) for very few money and it solves most of the problems. If I move speakers from the damping panels (reflection) area, vocals become "singing in a bathroom", difference is clear and huge.
Theoretically Kii Audio speakers can be a way against "bad rooms" but they use internal DSP as well and they are not cheap.
