Room treatments for a lively sounding room

I used professional room treatment products from RPG Acoustics when I had a dedicated Home Theater / music room about 18 years ago. After moving to a new place, the main system which now comprises of different amps, sources and speakers is located in an untreated living room. Ironically, the system that is currently in the untreated room sounds better than the system that was in a treated room.

Although room furnishing is not a substitute to commercial room treatment products, I find them to work reasonably well within their limits. I have thick curtains behind the speakers and a high pile rug covering a large area of the floor. A couch on the left wall and the equipment on the right wall. Believe it or not, just by pushing the rug 2 inches away from the speakers have a profound effect to the sound in my system.

The placement of speakers is extremely crucial in getting the best optimized sound from the system apart from the employment of isolation devices for both speakers and equipment, and finally proper or adequate furnishing in the room. It will all add up to the sound. My personal experience is that a proper or optimized placement of the speakers will resolve most issues of a bad room. The rest(equipment, cables, isolation etc.) will just improve the sound a bit more. Of course, room treatments is one of them.

In my opinion and experience, commercial room treatment products are nice and effective but are not a must have.

My experience as a long time apartment dweller, and now home owner, was that the GIK products I have travelled very well from place to place. The broad band soffit traps have been especially effective and beneficial.

I do think the pro calculators ask for excess treatment, but each room and space is different.  In my case with modest sized rooms they have worked really well and in fact have outlived every other piece of stereo gear.

I have six more units coming in march.  A pair of corner traps and four 4" thick bass traps to cover the bay window which is where the TV lives.  The view is to my neighbor's window so covering this up is fine.

I'll post when they are in.

The first thing to do is get a measurement microphone and a problem that gives you frequency response and group delays. After that get dirt cheap 4” acoustic tiles and place them to eliminate group delays (first reflections) and smooth frequency response trying to make both channels as close to each other as possible. Then you can replace the tiles with better looking treatments if you like. Every time the wife moves things around you have to remeasure and tweak. There are ways to do this blind but they will never be as good as using a microphone.

You could use window shades with design in them ..I know when I put my shades down on picture window what a difference .. I would use the thick black out shades

I like GIK also. In my room the corners have quite a bit of bass build up that is easy to hear by walking along the walls.The corners where the walls meet the ceiling were the most critical areas to treat.