That's simply impossible without making something else much worse. Not to mention that when taking into account superpositions between drivers/speakers, and the fact that even if you actually could effectively cancel out reflections ; it wouldn't be the psycho acoustically correct way of doings things. With treatment you are trying to achieve different design goals with different type of treatment. Something not possible in any other way.
I don't agree with your statement that "something else" would end up being much worse. As you addmitted yourself frequency response can be fixed by room correction and that is something all folks would hear and recognise as a step forward if done properly. Regarding the things in the time domain - well, from what I was able to see here, most of the folks believe it is of no practical importance as they claim difference can't be heard when you fix time domain. Some say contrary. Personally, I believe that truth is somewhere in between - I believe you can hear the effects of time aligned drivers but I also think tit is a very subtle change.
However, the effects of room eq can be measured and if I was to summarise it's effects it would be something like this:
- when you fix frequency response above Schroeder frequency it stays fixed throughout the room
- you can fix LF response at LP. It may make LF response worse at some other point of my room but as I don't sit and listen music there I don't really care
- when you fix time alignement and measure step response it stays fixed throughout the room. Of course, if you measure it 0.5m away from the speakers it will look much better than further away because the reflections will affect it, but it will still be better than when it wasn't aligned
Nobody claims that room eq can cure all evil, but it certainly helps in a very measureable way. I see room treatment more of a complementary action than a replacement for room/speakers eq. The better your room is in acoustical way the less you need to EQ it but your speakers will still need correction even in an anechoic chamber.
The difference between a well treated room and something based on "room correction" is completely night and day. One sounds completely unnatural and weird if one corrected much of what's non minimum phase behavior and the other sounds natural and spectacular.
This statement is very subjective unless you can offer some objective arguments/measurements for it.
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