Rives Audio Consulting - Advice?

At this stage of the game, anyone who knows what their doing, what all the options are for your room/system, knows acoustics front to back, understands your associated gear and life-style - and how all that plays in with the setup and room acoustics - will be far ahead of where you are, knowledge-wise! Basically, hiring someone is going to "get you there" much more likely than simply doing it yourself, with limited knowledge and experience with all this stuff.
On that note, at the very least, Rives will be able to work with you on your room acoustics, setup, and likely knows what would be best with your gear, room, and life-style (which, BTW, includes listening habits, types of music, social life-style, number of seating options, etc)
I've talked to Richard on many occasions in the past, and he knows what he is doing, at the very least on setting up 2 channel systems, yes.
If it were me, my experience however suggests you need to have someone come out and go through the complete system, do extensive tinkering, listening, and experimenting with all your variables, and dialing it all in! Simply having someone draw you some diagrams/blue-prints, and then possibly coming over for a couple of hours and taking a measurement, and having "a listen", isn't enough! When I spend time setting up rooms, I start from scratch (considering pre-existing room structure) with the speakers and listening seat(s), get everything engineered for best fundamentals, THEN I do the acoustics around that foundation, then the fine-tunning of the system!
Can't really remember the last 2 channel system I did that didn't take me less than 12 hours to simply place some basic treatments, move speakers and listening position(s) around, dial all that in, and go through the system for noise, EQ, phase, whatever. You can litterally spend days going over every single issue from fundamental response from the listening position, loud speaker toe-in, aim, image height and perspective, sound staging and balance of soundstage width, for imaging - image tightness, presence, proper tonality - room reverb, dealing with all the acoustical issues (slap echo, first and second order reflections, base modes - dips, peaks - etc), sound/noise considerations, dealing with system hums, and on and on!
Bottom line, is theres a lot of considerations for dialing in your race car for the track your driving on, given all the variables that even a basic 2 channel system consists of.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think the most effective Rives proposition is going to be the more full scale system package, where they come out and do some actual hands on tweaking - on top of actual acoustic design, recommendations and consulting.
Um, so yeah, Rives would be better than most you're likely aware of out there. They do professional work...recommended

Just remember, you are going by "their" philosophy if you choose them. Perhaps if you could get them to tailor to your tastes, then that would be fine. They aren't the be/all end/all, that's for sure. I've had friends say beautiful rooms, yes, good sounding, no....seems like a scary proposition if you ask me....

"They aren't the be/all end/all, that's for sure. I've had friends say beautiful rooms, yes, good sounding, no....seems like a scary proposition if you ask me...."

On this one, I'd say consider the relevance and reputation of the source. Everyone's gunna have their own opionions, biases, agenda's, personal experiences, "he said, she said" view points, etc. I'd take any critical opinions with zero foundation with which to back any critiques with a grain of salt personally. I mean unless you know who's experience your dealing with, you should do more research, go listen to someone's system that was done by that professional, make your own decisions, at the very very least.
Just because someone one person may or may not have had a good fundamental listening environment, associated equipment, noisy "un-issolated" listening environment, differing expectations of "what is and what should be", or has "a friend" who says they think someone else is likely better, er whatever, does not tell you a whole store, by any stretch. So, again, consider. I'd get the best help you can afford, and you'll still likely get better than you would on your own, by a lot.
Otherwise spend decades trying to learn all of this stuff yourself, and do it for a living.
Heck, for the record, I've had guys call me on the phone and tell me why they think I couldn't set up their audio system properly, and/or dial in their video display correctly, because they didn't feel I had the right equipment, or know which model of TV they had! And they didn't even know me or had never even seen/heard my work!!...total non-sense and bias, really.
People are simply amazing. They read a review or hear someone at a trade-show talkilng, and they think they know what they're talking about! It's like some poor person giving you advice on what you should do with your money - lol.
Good luck

"I'd get the best help you can afford, and you'll still likely get better than you would on your own, by a lot."

Not if they have different listening tastes you won't.
Otherwise, I concur with you overall. And yes, People are simply amazing. That's what makes them fun.....

FWIW - I am not sure that Rives or any acoustician will always get accolades - except perhaps from professionals who want the uncolored "truth" out of their recordings. Frankly there is no "standard" in home systems and people's concept of how things should sound varies wildly (many based on expectations from listening to colored impressive sounds for decades). This means it is a daunting task to please even the majority of people. What I mean is that precise and properlty calibrated acoustics are not actually desirable to some listeners who will be disappointed with midrange clarity and the all too obviously missing boom boom tizz.

Proper acoustics may be like fine wines....over time, a professional wine taster has learnt to recognize and appreciate an exquisitely balanced wine... something just right where you can taste each of the various flavors, smells and after taste - all perfectly proportioned: a wine that is in no specifc way impressive other than for its overall perfect balance and the way it completes food.