Although Steven and I seldon agree about much, I agree with his assessment of the contribution of the room. Unless the room is truly awful, as in an anechoic chamber or an echo chamber, most domestic rooms with rugs/carpets, uphostelry, bookcases etc etc have an RT60 time suitable for reproducing music. One's brain adapts to the sound of the room, as we're each used to hearing normal everyday sounds in that room, and know how the room modifies speech and these everyday sounds. Playing a HiFi system in that room then, will sound natural for that room. Whatever the HiFi system is doing will be modified by the room, but in a way we're familiar and comfortable with.
That's my objection to room correction, as it tries to remove the effect of the room. That's important for someone in a studio centre working an hour in one room, another hour in another room and a further hour in a third. The rooms should all sound the same as otherwise confusion sets in. Room Corrrection is appropriate in that situtation, but less so at home where we're only ever listening in one room that changes little.
Having said all that, some modern rooms are too sparsely furnished, with hard floors and the RT60 time is too long and the decay with frequency is too different. It also probably has flutter echos from too little dispersive material. A room like that, which we see in many adversting pictures for HiFi, will sound pretty bad, and will ruin any HiFi syesten however good. Equally, the old overstuffed Victorian clutter would be excessively damped and HiFi wouldn;t sound too good there either. A balance needs be struck, but when it is, the quality of the HiFi system itself can be heard, for good or ill.
S.
