7th I think we are saying similar things, I agree that a properly treated room comes first.
"why they aren't good compensation for a treated room. 'fixing' one spot in a room can fuck up another spot"
Most commercial mics are not flat at all. And you can actually use any mic with arc, but few mics have a truly flat response and in fact you really would not want a flat mic for anything other than measurement. So the mic that comes with ARC is not crappy it is actually close to this mic
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/M30/
Almost EVERY well designed room still has issues and needs some overall eq.
I AM saying that you are knocking a product you have never tried. That's lame, if you would try at and hear the difference it is substantial. It is also NOT a graphic eq at all. It is more like an FFT eq. You do know that you place the mic in about 12 different spots with ARC so it can measure your room completely? So it does not fuck up another frequency.
"In fact, instead of applying a regular standard EQ as all other systems do (that will be “valid” only in the sweet-spot, making all other room areas sound worse than before) the ARC system will analyze all zones you have in your studio, such as your center sweet-spot, producer desk or client couch. It will then provide a general correction that will effectively work on all of the zones, at the same time. If you want to get more detailed, you can measure multiple areas of the room (engineer’s area, client sofa, etc.) separately, and, using the menus in the plug-in, quickly and easily change the “sweet spot” of the room. Once the measurements have been taken, the measurement software will save those results as files that describe the room acoustics and the relative corrections. "
Point is, you are knocking a product you have never tried or heard and clearly don't even really know how it works or why it is different. So don't knock it until you have at least tried it. ARC is a game changer and I would never mix with out it now, and I know a TON of engineers that have amazing rooms and feel the same way.
And you do know I studied acoustics and designed studios and Sweetwater right?
@dac Really? I guess I have just always recorded real instruments. But yea I mic stuff all the time. And of course I do go direct fairly often.