What are the best Room Accustic Treaments members have found?

I have both GIK bass panels and corner traps and ASC Tube Traps. The ASC Tube Traps, though more expensive, are by far and away the more effective of the two. So much so that the GIK corner traps and some of their bass absorber/diffuser panels are now out of the stereo room and are in the family room with the AV system.
The workmanship is also much higher with the ASC products. I was disappointed in the overall workmanship of the GIK products, which came from the factory with exposed staples on some panels, wrinkled seams, and front decorative diffuser panels improperly fastened and bowed.

Eight 3' Tube Traps (two stacked in each front corner, with their diffuser side turned toward the sweet spot; two stacked to the outside of each speaker in the plane of the speaker fronts) made more improvement in the overall sound from top to bottom of my stereo than any component-level upgrade I've done.

Though not cheap, ASC products sometimes go on discount for show samples and clearance.
Good luck,
Steve Z

My suggestion would be to find out what your room is doing before seeking solutions to issues you may or may not have.  If you live near a local B&M store that installs home theatres, or an AV installer, chances are they have a program that will analyze your room. They should do this for a reasonable price - you are basically asking them for a quote to treat your room with whatever is needed and they will make suggestions about what sonic measures should be taken.

Whether you accept their bid to do the job or not, you have to be prepared to pay a reasonable fee for their time and expertise to analyze your issues.

If you still want to do it yourself, come back here and ask specific questions about what you need to do to rectify specific issues.

Wall placement as required by speaker setup reccomendation, reasonable amount of furniture and wave breakups, such as bookcases filled with books, and damping material placed strategically on walls, ceiling if hot spots (excessive refections) found.  Do this, and you will have a decent setup.  After that, it is all refinement and experimentation.

WOW, after I read what @joshfilm posted I went to the Stillpoints site, not believing that this patent drivel and misinformation was up for all to see.  I no longer have any interest in their products. This insult is the worst kind of advertising.


I was appalled to read this :  ❝When using conventional acoustic panels made of typical absorbing materials, there will be only one volume level at which the absorbing material will control the acoustic energy within the room adequately. (This is a static system.) At volumes above that level, you would need more absorption. At volumes below that level you will have too much absorption and the room will sound lifeless, dark, and dull. The Stillpoints Aperture utilizes a blend of absorption materials, and a unique design of internal chambers to trap acoustic energy.❞


The amount  sound is affected by an absorber is directly due to its coefficient of absorption and the amount/ thickness of material used. The absorption is NOT dependent on how loud you listen!

I recommend you educate yourself on room treatment. There is much on the net, some good and some not so good. Ethan Winer has some you-tube videos worth watching.  @millercarbon states that absorber panels are 'old school' and do very little and that carpet will do the same.  This is not correct.  The acoustic phenomenon does not care about old school and measurement will bear this out.

Consider buying a measurement mic. like Behringer for about $80 and using either Holm Impulse or REW. Both are free downloads.  I use Omnimic which is on sale from Parts Express for $250.  All these will allow you to measure what your room is doing and by looking at the csd plots you will be able to see which are the most troublesome frequencies.

The average listening room requires a T60 of about 400ms. This is the time it takes for the sound to decay by 60dB. This takes all the guesswork out of the equation. If not interested in measuring, though I find it so informative and a lot of fun, then by mounting bass traps in the corners, broadband absorbers (the ones millercarbon scoffs at) and diffusers if you have the space, you will be well on your way to being sorted.

Just these will make a huge difference to your sound and I mean HUGE, more than a component upgrade. You will no longer have the sound taking too long to die away confusing and smearing everything. It is difficult to conceptualise the way in which strong early reflections ruin the sound.


I again urge you to learn about this so you are not misled and can make informed decisions. For example many companies advertise bass traps but just looking at these things it can be seen that they are far too small to be effective. If you can DIY look up superchunk bass traps. Not difficult to build but they are large and this is what is needed to for them to work down to low frequencies.

A basic formula needed in this game is wavelength (lambda) = V/f
V= velocity of sound 343m/sec      f=frequency
I mention this to show you why it is folly to expect carpet to do anything useful, in fact wall to wall carpet is deleterious. Take a carpet 1/2" thick, from above formula, frequency=V/lambda= approx 2700hz. This is the freq. that will be absorbed. Because carpet is thin this will present a narrow band of absorption and because there is carpet everywhere that freq. will be missing in action. It is gone, absorbed and no EQ can bring it back. This also explains why bass traps are LARGE.

Dear OP I wish you luck and feel free to PM me if you like.

Active eq after room analysis with that device, with said space having the furnishings you care to have within it.
Then you can fine tune the 'details'....
Even if you have a dedicated space (most of us don't), this IMHO is the only logical approach to something you can live in....and not merely 'visit'..;)