Or, to take that idea even further:
You've just hit the lottery and bought your first Rembrandt (assuming you like Rembrandts):
- you could illuminate it using accurate museum grade lighting - so you can see
EXACTLY what the painting
REALLY looks like
- or you could illuminate it using candles and lanterns - so you can see exactly what Rembrandt would have seen in his studio while he was painting it
- or you could illuminate it using North window light - because Rembrandt painted it knowing that his customer was going to hang it in a room with a North window
Which would be "the accurate way of looking at it"?
However, when it comes to audio, a better analogy would be to using a projector.
You can correct for a slight color shift in the projector or a screen that isn't dead neutral.
But, if you're trying to project onto flowered drapes, there's not much hope.
Room correction can directly correct for things like the frequency response, and to some degree the phase response, of your speakers.
But it can't really correct for room acoustics... rather it corrects for the result of room acoustics.
Furthermore the degree and type of correction it can do will depend on the content.
For example, let's say you have a live concert, recorded in full surround sound.
In that case the room acoustics are, at least to some degree, included in the recording.
So, for example, you can boost the levels in the rear channels to raise the level of the rear reflections that are included in the rear channels of the recording.
BUT remember that, in your room, what you're going to hear from behind you is the
sum of the rear channels and the reflections from your
real rear wall.
So, if your room is twenty feet square, and the original recording was done in Winchester Cathedral, you're going to hear a sort of "double image" of the room...
You're going to the reflections from the rear wall of the cathedral, recorded in the recording,
and the reflections from
your rear wall.
And there's really nothing much room correction can do about that.
About all you could do would be to boost the levels of the rear channels so they dominate over the reflections from your back wall.
(So, in that case, the solution will be to use some room treatment to make sure your rear wall isn't intruding too heavily on the recorded "sound scape".)
The situation is actually complicated in a different way if it's a
STEREO recording.
In that case, if you have a surround sound system, you can use the upmixer to synthesize the rear channels.
If you do that, while it may sound nice, the room ambience is likely to be somewhat more vague, which will make interference from the room less critical.
Or, if you have a stereo system, or simply if you choose to do it that way, you can just play the recording in stereo from your front speakers.
And, in
that case, most of what you'll be hearing is the room ambience from
your room.
(And that may or may not be anything like the ambience that was present in the original venue.)
And, of course, if it was recorded in a studio, then all bets are off...
Because they could have added whatever ambience they wanted to...
And, especially in older recordings, that ambience may or may not even resemble the ambience of any real space, and may even be different between tracks.
(In the old days, effects were often added "per-track", so the amount and type added to different tracks sometimes didn't agree very well, or at all.)
Just a thought:
My personal preference would be to have the room as acoustically
neutral as possible.
I would also be inclined to at least try to optimize the room treatment based on the type of room and what you listen to.
For example, in general, you want a room to be "somewhat live", and it is often suggested to make either the front or rear half of the room relatively live...
But it has also been debated for decades "whether it's better to have the front or rear half of the room or studio live".
I would suggest basing that decision on the room and your musical preferences.
For example, if you have a small room, and like music recorded in cathedrals, then heavily treat the
REAR of the room.
(Because, with that combination, it's the reflections off the rear wall of your small room that are more likely to "clash" with the acoustics of the original venue.)
You are in an untreated but REQ'd audio room. Grandma stands in front of the center speaker and sings Amazing Grace. You have a recording that grandma made in a studio singing Amazing Grace. When this is played back in that same room, grandma sounds different. Which is the real grandma?
