Room correction (Was Progress?)

Daniel James wrote:
> it should be
> possible to set both monitor level and room correcting EQ through
> software something like Jamin? It seems a little crazy to put all that
> extra hardware into the monitor speakers themselves, when the computer
> they are connected to is more than capable of running a little DSP.

Don't underestimate the DSP power required for room correction. Most room
anomalies are caused by reflections and simple EQ cannot correct this.
Only minimum-phase effects (eg. bass boost caused by wall loading of
loudspeakers) can be compensated for like this. Correcting for reflections
involves analyzing the reflections and reverberation at the listening
position, then injecting a phase-inverted version of these into the signal
fed to the monitors. Not a trivial task, and it will only improve the sound
in one small area (it'll be worse everywhere else).

`Room correcting' EQ enjoyed brief popularity in professional studios in
the mid 1970s, but it soon fell out of favour when everyone realized it
didn't work.

John