Room Treaments - Where To Begin...

OP: I have read countless comments that the best thing you can do to improve the listening experience is to acoustically treat the room. But where does one gain the expertise to do so? There are so many products/options out there. I have no clue where to begin (or if I even need to do it)

Already told you how to gain the expertise: clap and listen. Use your ears. That simple.

What I left out is you don’t even need to do that. By far the best thing you can do is simply fine tune your speaker placement. By fine tune I mean use a tape measure to get them precisely symmetrical and equidistant. Next take everything apart, clean all the contacts, and when reconnecting this time take care to route all the wires keeping them away from all the other wires, and off the floor, and for that matter off of everything. No more tangles of wires right on top of each other.

A big reason so many audiophiles think the room is important is because they haven’t isolated anything and so are transmitting a huge amount of speaker energy straight into the floor, walls and ceiling. If you energize every surface of your room this way then of course your room is gonna be a huge problem. Duh. Effectively isolate your speakers and other components on Nobsound springs and this will eliminate a lot of that. More and more are catching on.

Between the clap test and the tape measure and the springs you will have spent an afternoon and about $100 and achieved results that with GIK would take $1500 and 3 months. Also you would have learned an incredible lot about sound, vs learning how to stick expensive panels on a wall. 

millercarbon:

Appreciate your insight. Excuse my lack of knowledge, but if my speakers (Spendor D9.2) are base spiked to carpet, aren't they already effectively isolated?

Thanks

Textbook RT60 for a mastering control room, mostly accomplished with natural treatments, a bit of hidden in art absorbers, etc.. 

But first a question (s ) to the OP about your tastes, what is your resident orchestra and where are your preferred seats in the hall ? Have you heard your Spendor in a better room or system ? what does it do that yours does not ? Congrats on the Spendor BTW, most excellent.

surfmuz,

This is a question of room acoustics, not soundproofing a room. Two different topics.

OK - here's the trick... to effectively correct the room acoustics, you have to measure the room acoustics and figure out what needs help.  Simple...  you wouldn't go to the doctor and say "I need medicine" because you know the next question is going to be "for what"?  you HAVE to describe the problem first and foremost.  Get a set of frequencies recorded at the same level, play them back and at least statically measure the room response at the listening position.  Back in the day, that would be a Stereophile test cd and a Radio Shack dB meter... nowadays, you can use your phone instead of the meter and I am sure there are some freebie apps with frequency sweeps.  Measure FIRST, then address the problems.  By the way - GIK may be longer lead times than pre-civid, but they ARE good products and reasonable prices and have good people on staff to make recommendations FREE if necessary.