I’m pretty sure RT60 would be overkill as my apt living room is on the small side and I do listen in the near field (about 8.5’ from speakers). When I snap my fingers the sound has no trail or spark to it, like in his video comparison. Once, when Tony Minasian came over, he walked around clapping his hands and talking and said my place was fine as is.
I’m lucky in that my old apt has that awful popcorn ceiling treatment that goes some ways to ameliorate reflections up there. Throw in some artwork on the walls that must do something, and I’ve never had that reverb effect to deal with.
The one thing that piqued my interest with Darko’s video was the diffusion aspect. Due to my room layout, the right side is about a yard from a wall of large side windows with those dreadfully dated vinyl, vertical blinds. As a result, the right side of the soundstage always seemed a bit livelier than the rest and at times seemed to be a bit more forward in presentation with some CDs.
I opened the blinds at about a 45° angle, facing the speakers. With the blackout curtains behind the blinds to help absorb and not reflect off the glass pane, I played some music and, lo! the stage was now evenly uniform. How I missed this all these years makes me blush.
Minor though it is, elements of the players have shifted a bit to the right and back and it’s calmer now overall. Goes to show that even something as minor as what I did can have that kind of effect.
All the best,
Nonoise
