Acoustic treatment question: do you agree with Dennis Foley that $46k to $65k is required?

It certainly doesn't have to cost that much to treat a room.

I was lucky enough to have a friend whose profession is building home theatre spaces, and he owns many thousands of dollars worth of audio instrumentation and software and he was kind enough to help me set up my combination listening room/home theatre.

I already had a false curved ceiling which helped on a couple of issues, and the one live wall made up of glass doors was happily handled by installing heavy optically opaque curtains which I needed for video anyway.

Many of the other issues were dealt with inexpensively. For instance two and a bit walls lined floor to ceiling with shelves of vinyl LPs make a great diffuser (and no, I did not stow them with every other album pulled out or pushed in although it would theoretically have enhanced diffusion.

Speaker set up was a mix of a ballpark area they needed to be in plus accurate measurement - me in a listening chair, him with a laser range finder to accurately position my chair and the speakers.  Ditto for the four surround speakers and two subwoofers.  

Undesirable echos were dealt with by things as simple as laying an antique carpet on the too live wood flooring.

Thanks @wwoodrum for your experiences. I have heard from several experienced people who added treatments early on only to find they didn't do anything. But, as you relate, adding more seemed to pull things into visible (or audible) range and then other work with diffusers, a bass array, etc. brought things home. But, at first, a lot of money for no results.

@wspohn  Yes, having that kind of help is invaluable! Good karma for you!

The answer is, 'Possibly' - you can spend less and you can spend more.
In my case, I spent $118K with Dennis for an unsatisfactory result.
It really depends on the room, and how difficult the existing acoustics will be to treat and the capabilities of the designer. If your room is pretty decent already, you may not need much to put the finishing touches on it. If your room presents difficult acoustic challenges, the spend can go way up as does the risk of as positive outcome.

In my case, I spent $118K with Dennis for an unsatisfactory resul

Have i read it correctly?

118,000 US dollars?

If yes, this confirm my experience and conclusion with 2 years of experiments at almost NO cost, in my room 13x13 square with 81/2 feet height... Irregular topology and irregular geometry ....One of my speaker is even in the corner a few inches of the walls.... The other not.... The imaging is no more affected at all now.... The balance between my 2 speakers is perfect instead of that....

Any small room NEED treatment and controls, especially if you think it is good... 😁 Because people have no idea what is the S.Q. impact adition.... They are never experience it how could they imagined it?

Acoustic retailer for reason of business economy must add customers, they dont need the time to cure a room, if this room is out of the ideal norm...

My experience with small room is that they need special, specific, listening attentive care with attentive ears...No rule easy to go with mechanically will cure a difficult small room with a not ideal geometry, a not ideal topology and a varied acoustical complex content... You cannot replace EARS experiments with charcoal or any "magical" costly materials....That post confirm my point...

But really you are unsatisfied after 118 k bucks?

I am totally in heaven in 2 listening positions in my room at peanuts cost.... Am i deaf?

No, the proof is there for me, acoustic controls and treatment need only careful listenings and incremental working.... It takes me 2 years of fun.....It is finished and i am stunned each day....

Trust your ears, keep the money, have fun.....

I spent $900 for all my GIK acoustic panels. I also spent another $1000 to implement software DSP via professionally crafted Convolution files running on ROON. I am mostly digital streaming so these 2 treatments get me to my destination. I am done.