Equalizer for McIntosh preamp - advice, please

FWIW the only way you can really kill your standing waves, and still retain good bass, electronically is with either a parametric equalizer or a 1/3rd band equalizer. You see the latter on EBay every once in a while.

The McIntosh MQ108 is exactly what you are looking for. You can do a million adjustments with it between 20 and 1000 Hz. It was designed to resolve your standing wave problem. The MQ107 will do all freqencies but you have to swap out plug-in caps that come with it. Ljgj is right - hard to find now but I have seen them on ebay now and again.

I've used a McIntosh, the 104, 107 and 108. While this unit was good, it had a few short comings and only one advantage (it's relatively cheap). It's noisy, it definitely adds noise into the signal. I was bi-amping so the noise wasn't a big problem (because I used the device on the bass signal only), but I could not use the device full range as it really degraded the transparency in the midrange and treble. The other problem, as the limitation of frequency settings and Q factors (they only have 2 Q factors--which they call a broad band and narrow band--so I don't know what the actual Q is). It was actually the basic idea of getting the bass right through my personal use of the McIntosh that drove me to design the PARC, but without the above limitations. You can still get used ones from Audio Classics I believe.

What do you gents think of the following statement:

" There is a basic flaw in the concept of 'room eq', in that the dips and peaks are not a signal amplitude thing, but a time delay thing. A particular frequency will cancel itself out at nodes just as much as it did before, if boosted - it then produces abberations at other points in the room.

The best approach it a bit of physical sound treatment in the room."

I remain,

Two other pro units I have used mainly in DJ systems are the Apex tube parametric eq (Musicians Friend) and the Peavey Kosmos. The Kosmos is the more fun of the two and I have one in my system with my Mac C2200 preamp. Go to the Peavey website for more info. Many of my high end friends have tried and bought one - it is defeatable when placed in the processor loop. It is also priced at 250 or so. Great fun - but no one who uses one will care to admit it for fear of being harassed in the no EQ philosophy of the high end world. Search the threads for the Peavey for more of my description of slipping it in the system. The Parc does look interesting.