Agreed to a point ... when I moved my system into a new room, controlling the lower frequencies became an issue. Was not an issue in the old digs. Same system, different room, different sound, different problems.
Still, much rather "fix" the room, than add EQ.
That can be an aspiration but the reality will severely get in the way. Home listening spaces are too small relative to the wavelength of sound. What this means is that the transition frequencies are in 200-400 Hz. Anything below those frequencies is going to have peaks and valleys due constructive and destructive summing of the reflected sounds.
You might then say you can fix these things. Well, it is not so easy. If you have the standard 2-channels system without a sub, then you can't play with the placement of the speakers to nullify all the modes. If you place them at 1/3 locations, you defeat a couple of the modes but not all. If you have them elsewhere, then you are not even getting that.
You can resort to acoustic treatment but if you are using the standard absorptive kind, they are least effective against the wall because the velocity of sound is by definition zero. Zero air movement means zero conversion of those reflections to heat. There are more advanced techniques but they require far more expertise to deploy. Even then, you cannot even dream about a flat response.
Our
home theater at work was designed from scratch and is full of every type of acoustic product you can imagine including multiple massive "bass traps" and absorbers. You can see some of it here (e.g. the round large bass traps in the corners):
And while not for low frequencies, more of it here:
This is the low frequency (< 80 Hz) response of it:
The faint graphs are the response without EQ. As you see, there is a peak around 60 Hz or so.
Post EQ is in bright white and the line at the bottom, shows all the parametric EQs that was applied to get it there. We have gone from nearly 10 db response variation to about 3-4 dB. That is quite audible.
And it is not just in frequency domain. All of those resonances create time domain ringing or overhang. Play the guitar at the beginning of Chris Jone's No Sanctuary Track. Listen to every pick. Without that EQ, they will extend and be boomy. With the EQ, they are tight and so realistic and pleasing. You can actually hear a proper string instrument with just the sub playing!
Everyone must measure their rooms even if they have no intention of treating it or applying EQ. Only then one will know how bad the response is. And I assure you that your system mostly likely is bad.
The physics of sound almost mandates it.
I will write a tutorial soon on how to do this but I can't emphasize this point enough: almost every system out there has bad to really bad low frequency response. And those problems cannot at all be dealt with "colorations I like." No one likes such colorations. They have no redeeming value.
