There is a massive stigma about EQ / DSP / Room Correction but I found it to be the biggest sound quality improvement I’ve made to my system costing over £10k.

If you’ve got room problems that can’t be solved any other way like I did and many others do then it can make a higher difference to the sound.

The stigma started at the shop I bought some of my equipment from. Stating that the amp I bought was not good enough and that I would benefit from something else.

Either way I bought the amp with Dirac inside and I was absolutely floored by how terrible my system sounded prior to running Dirac and just how amazing it sounded afterwards.

I would possibly put room treatment / DSP a tied first with speakers. A cheaper pair of speakers could sound much better than speakers 10x the cost if your room is colouring the sound too much. As already mentioned 20db swings aren’t uncommon and there is nothing to remove those other than treating the room or in some cases DSP.

I had a 15db mode in the room which was tamed with Dirac and this made the biggest improvement to my system I’ve heard over upgrading my speakers to 10x the cost of my original pair.

I’m running 2x NAD class D amps that get bad reviews / press and honestly I think they’re amazing.

I have bought ‘end game’ speakers but I did try 2/3 other bookshelves prior also based on reviews online but found them not to my taste or lacking in performance.

I had a conversation with the guys at the local (high end) HiFi shop to me where I bought my speakers from ‘ex demo’ who basically shit all over NAD and class D stating that ‘it’s not hifi unless it’s Class A or AB. Has to be Naim, Linn or Mcintosh.

Talked about Mcintosh watts vs watts claimed by other manufacturers, at this point I ended the conversation, left and I’ve not been back since.