Room correction - what device works best?

I agree with Zd542 ... if possible. In my case, it was not possible to "correct" my room. As you may already know, I opted for the DEQX PreMATE. It tamed my speakers and room. BUT ... I am not thrilled that it required adding an artifact between my preamp and amp.

As one respected dealer once told me, "sometimes you have to take 2 steps backward to be able to take 5 steps forward."

Ce la vie.

Also be careful not to use too much room correction...

I have found adding reflection absorbing panels and bass traps have made a tremendous improvement. Mostly DIY. A good site for advice is real traps.com.

Just curious why you're considering room correction? Is there a specific room issue you're trying to overcome (let's face it, they all have'em)? Have you heard a system with room correction? I get that you don't want to turn your family room into what looks like an adult daycare center, but I'd still try to do some of the basics like treating first reflections, corners, etc. if at all possible.

I'll just share my experience FWIW. I heard two different corrected systems, one in a hotel room and one in a big buck home system in a well-treated room. In both instances the differences were huge, as in as big or perhaps bigger than a significant speaker upgrade but definitely at that level. Put it this way, after hearing the corrected signal I didn't even want to listen to the un corrected system anymore. I'm with Byfwynne in not wanting to insert anything into my analog signal, but the improvements in these cases were so overwhelming that if it was degrading the signal to any degree it was swamped by all the other benefits.

Anyway, if it's me I'd try the DSpeaker just because it seems to work well and is relatively easy to use -- I'm not into endless fiddling with this stuff either. And it has a built-in display that may even allow you to use it without using a laptop. All that said, every room and system is different and you may or may not get the level of improvement I heard. Maybe you can find a way to demo one? Cable Company sells it so maybe you could return it with a relatively modest restocking fee? Hope this helps somewhat, and best of luck.

As others have stated you should do some physical room correction first.
This is advice based on my experiences;
Treat first reflections, front/back wall, corners and wall ceiling junction.
You will need a measurement device, highly recommend the Omni Mic system.
Bass issues are the most difficult to tame, especially if you have a smaller space that you can't move things around in to get out of the modes.
Bass traps were a no go for me, just not enough space.
I tried the DSpeaker Dual Core in the digital and analog domain, it would correct but I was never satisfied with the end sound.
Any device that worked in the digital domain that I tried always seemed to mess with the sound adversely.
I ended up inserting a Rives Parc just before my mono blocks, pure analog correction.
It is extremely transparent and did the bass correction that I needed without mucking up everything else.
You do not need the Rives software to set the Parc up, just a good measurement tool and enough patience to work through the learning curve, its really not that involved.
It is a shame that they are out of business.
There is a seller with two for sale on Audiogon, I feel that his asking price is too high, but he is taking offers.
Do not be fooled into thinking that you can not correct enough with only 3 bands of parametric correction per channel.
It works extremely well!