Acoustic treatment question: do you agree with Dennis Foley that $46k to $65k is required?

One of the things I like to think about is that room acoustics spend doesn't necessarily scale like other parts of gear.

$6k of room treatment in a modest, average living room is really nice.  That may be all you can spend due to room aesthetic considerations. Once you have that, you can scale up your electronics and speakers as much as you want to, your room acoustic treatments will remain.

Not enough coffee in me yet.  The last sentence should read:

ATS Acoustics is also very nice and quite affordable.

Even among the more common vendors, there's a pretty big disparity in cost.  About double what the next one down charges I think.  I haven't looked in a long time, but if memory serves:

• ASC (most expensive)
  
• GIK
• ATS (least expensive)
  

Of them, after hearing a hotel room full of ASC products I cannot recommend them at all. GIK is more affordable and has some really effective products for bass mode controls.  ASC is also very nice and quite affordable.

Oh, not sure who brought this  up but yes, floor and ceiling are hugely important places to consider room treatment.

Also, keep in mind that even if you can't get everything where you want it, room acoustics are statistical, not absolutes.  You can make up for deficiencies in one spot by adding more in another.  More or less. Of course, early reflections are hard to compensate for if you can't fix them, but they are only a small part of the story. Controlling bass modes, and the overall decay of signals in the room is as if not more important.

GIK makes art panels and I am thinking of having ceiling panels that look like a night sky.  Or white to disappear on the ceiling.

Well, I have made the point in this very forum that there is a minimum amount of critical mass needed before you take a live room and tame it enough to get real improvements.  Four 2'x4' panels?  Probably not a lot of benefit.  Maybe 6-8 panels plus some serious bass traps... now we are talking!

I should point out that while I am a big fan of GIK, especially for their advice services, ATS acoustics is also very good and even more reasonable.

I agree with Mapman.

I think overall those prices are too high, but it depends.  If you are building a room from scratch, and looking to incorporate bass traps in it, and the like, then those prices are right. 

However, no, GIK makes great products including absolutely wonderful bass traps that you'd be hard pressed to treat a modest living room and spending more than $10K.
My own living room will end up being around $3K, see pictures in my system.