Equalizer in a Hi Fi system

Maybe one of the best lines in this thread.

I feel once playing with hi fi gear that there’s more “bang for the buck “ exploring best EQ solutions as opposed to continually upgrading equipment in the chain.

And this is a gem too. yes I have.

Room acoustics are very important and most rooms require some sort of management depending on the type of speaker used.

Room control is a misnomer. It is really speaker control. It repairs and adjusts things that are totally immune to room management like group delays and the variations in frequency response between the two channels. Then there is making the system sound the way you want it to.

I do think there is more flaw to fix on the recording side than the playback side, assuming a reasonably good room. Otherwise why would my best recordings sound absolutely sublime on hi fi gear and not require any EQ?  Miro has said this as well previously 

As far as room mechanical controls, as mentioned by mahgister - traps, diffusors,  helmholtz devices and such: I have a troublesome boom between 70 and 80 hz caused by room dimensions and have been looking at different ways to reduce these peaks. I have some homemade broadband traps and a bit of diffusion but not enough space for diffusion to fully do it's optimal scattering thing.

My speakers are Spatial Audio M3 Turbo S. The maker, Clayton Shaw, has been very generous with his time in answering questions from me as to improving my experience with the speakers. Yesterday, he told me about something new to me, PSI Audio from Switzerland and their AVAA active 'traps'. Very pricy but for those who can afford them, a potential solution to some very hard to solve (mechanically) issues.

Big picture, they use a microphone and generate a signal 180 degrees out of phase to effect cancellation of certain frequencies. An active solution in a smaller package than many helmholtz devices or conventional traps. These seem to offer a way for dealing with some low frequency issues without inserting a device into the signal path. Great thread! I hadn't seen any mention of these devices and just had to share what Clayton had shared with me. It may help someone, I hope. 

Anxious to hear from trackman....

In other words what the artist intended doesn’t always translate post production. So being a good mastering mixing engineer is an art that must be very challenging. This why I like the cello palette Stereophile article so much. I just think that’s the biggest piece in the puzzle 

We’ll…unless you’ve got a room like @kykat   

that sounds pretty challenging!  Interesting about active traps. 

given how many people have room modes I feel pretty lucky that my bass response is so even in my room