Bass traps? (to solve a suck out)

LOL. Bob is quite correct - bass traps can help suckouts. The others that chimed in against Bob are of course making what superficially appear to be logical statements. A very understandable misconception.

The same understandable thing happens when an audiophile attributes magical properties to a speaker cable when differences are mostly due to equipment design and matching (or slight change in seated position). Again superficially it seems like the cable is the only thing changed therefore it has "caused" all the change. Whereas poor equipment match and design or your head movement are the real culprits, as a cable should NOT cause dramatic changes if the equipment worked well together in the first place or you sat in the exact same spot with exact same volume levels.

Here is what Ethan has to say on Why we believe

and here is an article that suggests that bass traps can improve nulls and suckouts ...in fact this may be the biggest benefit of traps...it matches my limited experience with Ratschack meter and GIK Tri-traps - I trap mostly for nulls and use a PEQ (only on the sub) for taming peaks. It seems to work well and can probably fix almost any room - the key is to get rid of really bad suckouts and get reasonably flat - I would never recommend you go for ruler flat as I think the actual room sound is something to be enjoyed too, after all it is real and you can't hide it from your eyes and ears completely.

Of course, just two cents worth and I respect that often no agreement can ever be reached on these type of opposing views. For some, cables have had a huge impact and are clearly seen as having special properties and wires are worth treating cryogenically and all manner of other tweaks, such as raising them off the floor.

Hi shadorne you said "LOL. Bob is quite correct "

Actually now that is pretty funny... and a first!

Bob

Have you considered elevating you sub with an ASC sub stand? this will change the positioning of your bass measurments.
Typically you will need to move your positioning of your speakers or your listening position to change a null.

I dont run a sub as I run speakers that have usable bass to 16HZ but I may try to add my sub to fill in suck out if nothing else works (Ihave an HSU Research used for just HT currently). Tonight I am gonna dig back into the room and measurements and will report results later...wish me luck.

Bob,

Sorry ....not laughing at you but the plots that Ethan shows have huge differences over a few inches in a real listening environment. It has to make one "laugh" and put things in proper perspective when one looks at a Stereophile set of pristine measurements! What are we actually getting at home - even the best of us - and how much 'processing' is the brain doing to compensate for these peaks and troughs.

Certainly Ethan's arguments seem to support the contention that a device that produces modest amounts of additional even harmonic distortion may very much help improve the sound in a typical room with nasty suckouts. As in the case of nasty suckout at a particular fundamental, it will be all the other harmonics that still allow our ears/brain to interprete, fill-in and hear the note with a fundamental that actually isn't there...perhaps this is why even harmonic distortion is often pleasing and adds warmth and detail that we could not appreciate before in our less than adequate surroundings...