room treatment effectiveness

I agree with most of what Shadome said except the last statement. It turns out when you are dealing with modal characteristic it affects it everywhere except the null points, which you don't care about anyway. While you correct for a particular location it has a positive effect just about everywhere--though the most positive effect is at the point where it's measured.

The issue you described with the bass traps only lowering the bump 0.5 db is no surprise. This is basically lack of knowledge on how to use the bass traps properly and tune to the specific frequency. Shadome brings up the 1/4 wavelength cancellation principle. When you use the theory applied to traps--absorptive ones you realize the traps have to be signficantly out in the room to affect that frequency and you need a large trap. There are more effective traps for specific frequency. The NEW RPG modex traps are very effective. For broadband there are ways of building traps extremely effective.

The other aspect you bring up, which is a very good one, is how do you know what to buy. It's not easy and the other caveate is if 2 absorption panels are good, that doesn't mean 6 more will be better. This is why we provide the services we do. Our fees typically save the clients money on not buying unneeded acoustical treatment, or often saving a lot of money for clients that will build their own devices based on our designs.

The room is 14W x 14.75L with a vaulted ceiling that is 8' on the left to 11.6' on the right wall. The right wall is 7" tall with a soffit that sticks out into the room about 2' and then up for another 1.5' for a total height of 8.5'. Then the upper portion of the wall is open into an adjacent 10W x 25L room.

I tried moving the seating position out by a couple of feet and that made things worse. It seems like the 200 hz note is loudest centered between the speakers and several feet out from my listening position which is close to the wall. The corners of the room are less affected. I don't like the speakers in my face and having them positioned 8' into the room just won't work for me.

It's odd that one speaker has such a pronounced peak and the other does not even when placed relatively the same in the room.

It turns out when you are dealing with modal characteristic it affects it everywhere except the null points, which you don't care about anyway.

Thanks for correction. It illustrates your point about your services and their value.

In a digital based system,the Z-Systems might do the trick:RDQ/RDP.

I went the DIY route and I am very satisfied. I used Jon Risch's recipes on his site. The biggest improvement was in imaging and it was huge. I also treated my cathedral ceiling and that was huge. I have 7- 18" diameter 4' tall bass traps in corners and 4- 4' X 2' X 4" thick along the ceiling apex. My investment in time was around 10 hours and the money was less than $250. DIY doesn't take many tools, is not that difficult and has the rewarding factor plunking down the credit card does not. You comment regarding measurement differences a good bit. Since most people don't have the capability to properly measure before and after I'm not sure that's as important in the same way comparing specs of two $10K digital platforms means as much as the potential buyers choosing between the two by ear. If you are going to buy pre-made I too recommend using the Rives forum on AA to get opinions from those in the know like Ethan and David. Good luck!

ET