"The room can totally wreck, or make, a system"

I've spent the bulk of my audiodefiled past attempting to counter spaces that defied reasonable attempts to 'cure issues' with varied results.  Since most were rented, anything beyond the 'not all that simple' quick tricks (toe in/out, space between/from back wall, height, tilt, etc.) would yield varied degrees of satisfaction or just relative tolerance of the situation.

In the 2 'owned' spaces, what imho and ears did the better outcome was room eq to the best attainable of FLAT, tweaked to taste.

Back in the '80's, an Audio Control eq with it's dinky calibrated mic and much darting around with the latter managed to get a handle on the response.

Later, my 1st Behringer eq which came with DRC and 100 memories with its' mic made the process less of a hurdle; L, R. and L+R allowed one to tame the tones and blend a mem setting or blur a pair together...improved but still a tad short in a world of random room profiles ... *laugh* ....

I now own 2 of them, and a 2nd matching mic is pending shortly....

That, REW, tone generators, sndpeek, and a raft of other online apps and display types allows analysis side by sides....but currently in yet again...not mine....ours.

Room Rodeo Response : Ignore the room, concentrate on the field within....
...and don't go all Dolby over it.... ;)

Rest of the time I just enjoy wherever the current plateau I'm at...

But, given the situation to do such, I'd still restart with the space first, knowing what i've read here and thereabouts..

Thanks, y'all. 👍

@mashif

Sure, live music occurs in an acoustic space and that’s an important part of the original sound. But a good recording captures that sound and that’s what I want to hear. An untreated, live room distorts the sound in the recording by adding sound that wasn’t part of the original performance. No different than noise.

A room needs both diffusion and absorption for different reasons. But the net effect of good treatment is reducing the sound of the room and allowing you to hear the recording without added noise, which is what reflections are. Noise that wasn’t contained in the original recording.

You’ve made a great case for a pair of headphones or near-field listening.

Your argument doesn't seem to extend to studio recordings, does it?  If I'm listening to Aja by Steely Dan, which is mixed to the nth degree, what kind of "room acoustics" are in there? Or EDM? It is up to my gear and my room to provide a canvas for that sound. The canvas can be good (well treated room) or bad.

For some reason, when I’ve treated my room and gotten the frequency curve and reflections where I want them, the music sound full, well placed in the sound stage, and relaxed. When I sit near-field or put on headphones, I feel suffocated.

No, there’s a difference between a good sounding, properly treated room that is not just about "adding noise." It is adding naturalness, the physiologically-based experience which was described before. If this was not true, most people on this forum would just be wearing headphones or would have formed a hobby around collectively bad taste.

All rooms have acoustics and each is different.

If you want to hear what your gear sounds like without room acoustics set your speakers up outside.

Years ago I set up my Ohm Walsh speakers cranking off a Tandberg tr2080 receiver outside on a porch of a rural Kentucky farmhouse for an outside party. Wowsa!!!! THe best sound I ever got out of system up to that time by a longshot even 40 yards away. Crazy Horse and others were jamming like live both loud and clear!.

This is why it is so difficult to get new entrants into this hobby; we keep making it more complicated (and expensive) for newbies to put together a system (including room) that is acceptable to 'us" and not subject to outright ridicule and scorn.

@hilde45 

I totally agree about a good sounding room. That's what good mixing rooms are. 

Studio recordings may or may not feature the acoustic space of the original recording. But the artist/producer/engineer work hard to create the space they want the music to be in. They want you to hear that too. A studio is not some sterile space. Most artists want to feel the emotion of the music in the studio and the closer your room is to a studio environment, the more you hear what was intended. 

Of course, every great studio sounds different so I'm not suggesting there's some standard. You create the room you like. But not intentionally creating a good sounding room limits your ability to hear the recording as it was intended.