I totally improvise with homemade available materials and some unorthodox materials for my own acoustic active and passive devices and the results are stupendous at peanuts costs....
The only problem is that you must learn how to trust your own ears, an exercise nowadays absolutely not recommended by the so called experts because they said that our ears are " biased" in a way a computer is not....For sure they are and fortunately nobody own the same ears...
But think about it: room passive treatment and active controls connect inseparably 3 elements : the speakers, the unique geometry and content of your room, and the unique structure of your ears...
You must trust your ears, having fun, and TRY creatively simple materials solution.... I succeed.... Why not you?
A powerful and non technical musical test for your audio system :
Take a copy of Bruckner 9 th symphony, by Celibidache in my case, And listen to it attentively...You can try his great mass by the same maestro....
Do you perceive the intricate dynamical geometry between smoothness and intensity, punctuated by silence ?....Do you sense easily the difference between, the brass family, the wood instruments family and the strings family, the solists and choir voices family, their slow interpenetrating dances and complex successive motives transformations.... Do you SEE it? (a perfect listening is always a seeing)
If yes, it is because your system allow accurate timbre reproduction and 3-d imaging that help to perceive the dynamical interplays between musical motives in a 3 dimensions space out of the speakers....
If yes, your audio system is then able to give you an audiophile experience indeed....
If not, dont panic and especially DONT upgrade anything tomorrow...
Read my posts about the 3 embeddings dimensions and controls....
Any relatively good system must give to you what i describe while listening Bruckner....
By the way dont said to me that you dont like Bruckner.... Say instead i never perceived this beautiful dynamical geometry and i dont have a clue about what you speak about.... I will say to you that probably you had never perceived these beautiful motives because your system is badly embedded and dont help you at all.... You probably dont need any upgrade, just some minute attentive listening concentration time in setting your embeddings controls for the months to come and trust me it is fun....And rewarding....
And you are lucky because without clues it takes me few years to figure it out....I has given to you some creative ideas in my thread about the embeddings then it will takes you months and not years..... Be creative and enjoy without throwing money in illusions....
My best to all....
