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[fj]

Does anybody use graphic eqs to balance the speaker frequencies in your room?

[TotalSonic]

I think pretty much every mastering studio I know of uses room treatments and speaker placement to get things "right" instead of using an eq - as usually even the best eq's induce resonant points and distortion - without being able to correct for problems in a rooms acoustics - so they often cause many more problems than they solve.  

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Ethan Winer]

> Does anybody use graphic eqs to balance the speaker frequencies in your room? <

That doesn't work. A third-octave EQ is way too coarse to target the very narrow peaks and nulls in most rooms. But even a parametric EQ does a poor job. The text below is from my Acoustics FAQ.

--Ethan

Quote:

Another common misconception is that equalization can be used to counter the effects of acoustic problems. But since every location in the room responds differently, no single EQ curve can give a flat response everywhere. Over a physical span of just a few inches the frequency response can vary significantly. Even if you aim to correct the response only where you sit, there's a bigger problem: It's impossible to counter very large cancellations. If acoustic interference causes a 25 dB dip at 60 Hz, adding that much boost with an equalizer to compensate will reduce the available volume (headroom) by the same amount. Such an extreme boost will increase low frequency distortion in the loudspeakers too. And at other room locations where 60 Hz is already too loud, applying EQ boost will make the problem much worse. Even if EQ could successfully raise a null, the large high-Q boost needed will create electrical ringing at that frequency. Likewise, EQ cut to reduce a peak will not reduce the peak's acoustic ringing. EQ cannot always help at higher frequencies either. If a room has ringing tones that continue after the sound source stops, EQ might make the ringing a little softer but it will still be present. However, equalization can help a little to tame low frequency peaks (only) caused by natural room resonance, as opposed to peaks and nulls due to acoustic interference, if used in moderation.

[fj]

Thanks for the replies. They have saved me from an unneeded purchase.

I wasn't specific enough in my original post. It's my speakers that are more the problem than the room. My nearfileds are accurate but my midfields, which I use only during tracking sessions, are not.

Is there a suggested way to deal with this particular problem on a limited budget?