Chris, you can ignore this.
I want to address some of the things Chris said, for the lurkers out there. As in 99.9444444% of all forum posts, everywhere, these are my beliefs and opinions, but I believe they are backed by current audio knowledge as published by Toole, Harman Corp, et al. If you want easily attainable background info, I suggest reading the many forums hosted at Audio Science Review (a forum based on repeatable, verifiable *measurements* of audio equipment, without regard to the myriad of observation biases humans are so prone to). I am not a member of ASR.
"I ascribe to the notion that every component degrades SQ "
Audio electronics (and cables!) are so good that this just is not defensible. The 'shoutometer' gives an easily understandable example of how distortion in an audio chain, of a few dB, is inaudible.
"Most applied examples of EQ use far too much correction, particularly boost, which is bad. "
I'm not sure where you are seeing these examples. Certainly, boosting bass can lead to amplifier clipping and drivers bottoming out. As in all things, people need to use 'common sense'. REW already includes boost/cut limits. There has been a nonsense meme out for at least 50 years, that *any/all* EQ is bad. 1.) That is just pure nonsense. 2.) You have NEVER heard reproduced audio that has not gone through some type of EQ. (Chris-I'm NOT saying that this is what you said!)
"Many people target a flat frequency curve as the holy grail. It unfortunately is not the arbiter of sound quality. "
Actually, according to Harman Corp, who have spent (in my humble guesstimate) hundreds of thousands of dollars blind-testing a large variety of trained and untrained listeners, in custom-built rooms, with many different speakers, a 'flat' response, that *generally* drops around 10 dB in loudness from sub-bass to high treble, IS the most important arbiter of quality. Common sense would also say that gross speaker problems would be assumed non-existent, for obvious reasons. (This FR has been found to *sound* flattest in testing over the decades, due to room effects.
"Many people choose to ignore room issues and use EQ as a hammer to smash the egg. "
Or it could just be so much easier (and more acceptable) to get great results, without plastering the walls with eggshell-cut foam?