Room Treatments

I found that absorption gives you clarity and diffusion give you realism. Take a look at my system. The room treatments are the most important part. I've added RPG Modfractals between the speakers and more bass trapping in the corners above the mondo traps. I'll update my site shortly.

I used Rives for the plans,RealTraps for corner bass trapping and RPG Diffusor treatments.

hi bigby, are those lights on your ceiling or sound treatments? very nice looking and just wondered about what improvements they made.

Kclone,
Nice system and expensive too! You really are only listening to a fraction of its capabilities because the room is the other 50% of what you're listening too, whether you realize or like it or not . . .

My room is the same dimensions as yours so for what it's worth look at my System pics to get an idea of what I've put where.

I would highly recommend you read Dr Floyd Toole's latest book as it's excellent at applying the physics and pyschoacoustics to stereo and surround sound / HT. Armed with some education you will be in a better position to critically evaluate manufacturer's products and other people's advise, mine included.

How much liberty do you have at hanging and adding room treatments or is there a significant other than will banish you from the bedroom at the first sight of treatments?

Not all reflections are created equally and the ones coming from the back and front walls are worst so I'd start there. Diffusion behind you adds listener envelopment and depending on your distance from the listening chair to the back wall will determine if 1D or 2D diffusion can be used and the max cell/well depth that it will diffuse down to. Also diffuse the side walls at and behind the listening position for further listening envelopment. The front & back walls should have bass absorption at the 25%, 50% and 75% points across the wall width at least. For mid/high frequencies for the front wall you can try absorption or diffusion for personal preferences.

Side walls will need some kind of treatment to deal with the slap/flutter echos and you can opt to experiment with absorption or diffusion to find what type of sound you like best. You can also use reflection which is what I'm in the process of redoing my room with using long boards hung horizontally but with the bottom angled upwards so that sounds hitting it are reflected upwards towards the ceiling where I have RPG Skyline diffusion to further attenuate the reflections.

As you can see there is much to this - throw in measurments of RT30/60, Frequcy Response Vs SPL levels, and others, then mix in personal preferences and you have thousands of permutations . . . I've learned a heck of a lot via studying and communicating with Dr Sean Olive, Prof Trevor Cox and experimentation within my own room moving diffusion and absorption here there and everywhere and measuring before/after effects.

Good luck.

I relate so much to the OP and I think it is a very common issue. I look at many system pics and wonder what the heck guys are doing with all those traps/tubes/diffusers/panels etc! From my experience, they all have their own sound and more often than not when I try to bring them into my space I screw things up more than help. I have read many of the popular, suggested, articles and still no zilch about measuring sound other than what I hear. I envy some of the members with more technical backgrounds who do in fact know how to actually tune a space but man am I far from that. So...the solution I found was the panels from Furutech + Acoustic Revive. They do not resolve all issues but along with my floor to ceiling drapes, big couches and rugs, seem to bring a big improvement in overall sound in my space. They offer a few simple suggestions on placement which I used as a baseline and no measuring was necessary. Of all the stuff I have tried, these "devices" are by far the best for me and the impact is quite dramatic. Bonus is they look very stylish too! So that is how I compensated for my lack of scientific knowledge!

Room tuners for hire and others who model a room should do away with as many ninty degree intersections as they can. I have seen many store bought rooms displayed on these pages and on 6 Moons that are overtreated and overcorrected when in fact the basic geometry is still overlooked. These flaws include soffits that house mechanicals in retangular enclosures hanging overhead and running around the room to give the appearance of a tray ceiling. These trays inhibit the airflow in the room and cause major frequency and phase aberrations. If they were simply addressed with an angle that would redirect the flow of air gracefully at the listener then less restrictive foam and fiberglass need apply. Would you put a ninty degree bend in a tuned header of a race car.
Tom