No no no no.
I’m sorry - I started this thread when the DSP function was new and I was learning how to use it. We all were. Interesting discussion ensued. But since then, my understanding of how to use the tool has evolved, and I have better measurement tools, and I have written extensively about this - but in other threads. That’s the nature of a forum like this, information is spread out and not necessarily easy to find.
So let my summarize my evolved views, expressed elsewhere.
In my view, the things that affect sound quality are, in order of importance, 1) the room, 2) the speakers, 3) having electronics that meet a minimum bar of adequacy (e.g. amps with enough power), and 4) all the details that the corksniffers enjoy debating such as DAC architecture and MQA and cables and power supplies and operating system simplification. I’m not saying the corksniffing tweaks are not real, im just saying they are vastly, fantastically unimportant compared to the room and speakers.
Unfortunately, the cost also follows that list. And there are non-cost impediments to room modification, I don’t want to sit isolated in a separate room to listen to music. I enjoy my music in a room with a view of the lake and the mountains, and art on the walls, and furniture I like.
DSP-based room correction is one of those magical things that shortcut that relationship: it can dramatically affect the most important aspect, while costing very little. Indeed, when Roon added it, the cost became near zero. Not quite, you need a mike and measuring software, but it is still small.
And by having room correction in the Roon core, the marginal cost per room is zero: once I had the instrumentation, I can correct every room where I have an endpoint, and in the next few days I’ll bring my mike and laptop and correct my son’s room, because he has Roon too.
So this is one huge advantage in not having RC built into hardware. The other reason is that it is far better than almost all of them, because of greater processing power and, in many cases, greater skill and better design.
And it is not about the quality of the amps and speakers. After a lifetime with this hobby, I finally indulged myself and got a stupid-expensive system and set it up in a large room, it’s gorgeous, but the DSP improvement is still huge.
And I used DSP for a smaller room, 15 foot square, lined with books and one glass wall, with bookshelf speakers literally in the bookshelf, and the result is lovely. See the curves below, before and after.
But you have to be careful. Moving sliders at random doesn’t work. In my experience, PEQ even when measured and calculated with REW, is nowhere near as good as convolution calculated with Acourate.
(I believe, without evidence and thorough understanding, that the main reason is that convolution doesn’t just modify the amplitude response as shown in those curves, but also the phase and time response which is harder to illustrate and understand.)
So here are my results. Main room with big speakers:
Library with smaller speakers:
