[glaufman]

Thanks Terry... I'm with you on about half of it, but another half got me confused again... bear with me, please, although I've been listening and palying around with equipment for years, I'm really quite the newbie... anything I've omitted here just assume I completely agree with and (I think) completely understand...

My aim is to get the speaker itself as flat as possible in it's FR,

Nothing wrong with making that the speaker/amp/preamp combination, right? Trouble is, I read the sticky thread somewhere on here explaining you want to set a house curve since the sound sounds, well, flat, when you adjust it to be a flat response...

What you get in the room after that is another matter!! But that is the nature of the beast.

Here's where the real confusion starts to set in... I understand you won't hear exactly what the speaker is putting out due to the room response, but then how (or is it more appropriate to ask where) do you correct the speaker if not in the room? Or, are you saying that by measuring the speaker 1m away (as opposed to the LP) you can get a much cleaner measurement of what the speaker is putting out with less (perhaps even negligible) effect from the room acoustics?

In my situation, regarding your question above, is that my speakers ARE flat, very much so ( I use the deqx) and so that is always my first point of call, as accurate a reproduction as possible.

Just out of curiosity, anyone know where one might be able to attain measured response curves on different speakers? Hardly makes sense to pay to rent a good anechoic chamber, but if the speaker manufacturer doesn't provide? No, I'm not going to move my setup into an open field just to get this, I'm just curious...

However, as most of us know, not all recordings are good!! With the deqx it is then a trivial matter to 'boost/cut the bass as needed', add or remove treble, or again fiddle with the midrange all from the LP (using the remote) to suit whatever recording I happen to be listening to.

AHA! Believe it or not, this is one of the areas where I'm asking for help... follow me on this scenario...
I have a system. When I set the system up, I spend many hours over many days listening to my favorite recordings and tweaking the eqs (in the days when I really knew nothing and therefore completely ignored response curves and room acoustics) until I thought it sounded about as good as it could be gotten. Very proud with myself. I had a friend over, and him being a big audio guy, I want to fish for the compliment of how good it sounded. So instead I asked him if as long as he was there to see if he could do better. In 5 mins he had made such drastic improvements with only the eqs that I couldn't believe my ears. I had never heard a system play a reording with such clarity. Ever since I've been looking for a way to train my ears to be able to do the same things. This scenario repeated itself several time over the next few years... I'd ask this guy to train me, but we're no longer friends... I obviously can hear the differences, so I wonder what I'm missing that makes me unable to achieve the sound that I prefer...

So, I accept your friends argument, but bear in mind I always come from the security of knowing that my speakers ARE flat to start with.

Meaning they have a flat response themselves, or you've made them flat with eq?

Regarding EQ in the room, I personally agree 100% with the comments made earlier, above a couple of hundred hz it's a bad idea. Room acoustic treatments are what is needed.

Again, confusion sets in. Where else are you going to eq but in the room? Do you mean don't cut obtrusive frequencies instead of treating the early reflections? OK, makes sense. Or is there something more to it? Even in the lousiest acoustic environments I've been in, I cna hear an increase in treble when the trble is turned up, so what exactly is the problem with doing that?