[terry j]

I would like to add a little here, not to contradict anyone but maybe a slight difference in perspective on the use of the DEQ at higher frequencies.

Personally I would without hesitation cough up the extra few bikkies for the deq.In addition to being able to fix up the bass, you can also use it to correct the frequency response of the speakers themselves. Well, to be a little more precise, you can set the FR curve to whatever your own personal tastes are!!

Where I totally agree with Bruce on the correcting the higher frequencies issue is if you applied any sort of eq in that area based upon measuring from the listening position. Then you are not correcting the speaker, you are compensating and attempting to correct for the room and are, quite frankly, on a hiding to nothing.

However, either outdoors if you can else in a place of minimal room reflections, measure the speaker from say 1m then eq the SPEAKER (ie definately NOT the room) flat, I only do the auto eq from around 100 hz or so, as anything below that falls into the normal procedure of the shack and is corrected in the bass at the listening position. It will be now closer to 'perfect' in the 'plus or minus Xdb' measurement, which we want.

The now corrected speakers are put in the normal position, then the everyday shack procedure of correcting the bass follows as normal, we simply ignore any corrections above the normal bass frequencies. Why?? Because, as Bruce rightly points out, any corrections in the mid or high frequencies are best corrected by room treatment.

I will point out that if you do use the deq, then to use the auto eq feature then you will need the ecm 8000 as well, which is an extra expense to consider. Unfortunately, having the ecm won't mean you don't need the RS meter, because to get the signals into the computer with the ecm to use REW, you will need a mixer which will be an additional expense again.

I personally feel that these small extra expenses are worth it though.