Diffuse Front Wall? Absorb rear wall?

The front is a matter of taste but a live front end is often more pleasant sounding or lively. Generally it is best to absorb on the rear wall behind the listener...if you sit with your head near this wall then you need diffusion behind you for sure.( normally you should sit 38% of room length and at least 3 or 4 feet from a wall.... 8 feet or more is much better)

LEDE was out of the recording industry in the 60s. It was for control rooms, not listening rooms. Go to this page. Click on the article "on the soundstage" by Chris Huston on the right hand side. This will give some insight into the differences of a control room and listening room. For those that don't know, Chris Huston has over 40 years experience as a recording engineer, producer, studio and media room designer. He has over 80 gold and platinum records to his credit. He is an amazing source of information--and a great person too.

Thank you for the input to all. Variety of opinions and experiences. Subjective hobby. Appreciate the insights. For what it's worth, the last couple nights I've been listening with the rug behind me (apprx 3 ft behind me in a 22ft room -- speakers are appx 8 ft off of the front wall --- and I now have a row of ASC Sound Panels and one Tube Trap in the middle across the front wall). Pretty pleased with the sound. Think I need some basic absorption stuff on side walls now, and may be close. Thanks again.

FWIW, you will almost certainly benefit from moving your listening position another 2 two or three feet from the rear wall. (towards the speakers)

Also if you place more broadband absorbers behind you (closer to the listening position) then it will help you achieve a larger sweetspot and much better articulation in the mid range. Tube traps are narrow band absorbers - so placement is very tricky - unless these are just absorption columns (not the same as tubes)

I would go with treating at least three corners with big broadband absorbers like GIK Tri-traps - 16 to 20 linear feet of these big guys should start to make a difference. Corners roughly double the effectiveness of trapping.

Why big broadband...because this is easy and works down to about 100 Hz even may have a little benefit at 50 Hz. You can almost never get enough of lower frequency absorption - although you can over do it with mid and trable panels.

I find the GIK's tritraps are just big enough that a single 4 foot tall panel will impact sound in a corner very obvioulsy and audibly at a distance of up to roughly three or four feet away. Further than this and the effect is more subtle and you need to add much more than one panel to get a significant improvement at a listening position that is six feet away or more.

I have four or these large panels and it makes a noticeable improvement...I should do more but there is a limit to what I can accept aesthetically.

Alternatively, I built a huge firelace with stacked logs directly behind the listening position which acts as a random RPG skyline type diffuser and a broadband absorber to boot; an extremely effective and stealthy way to cut down on rear wall reflections. This is similar to your idea of hanging a heavy rug on the rear wall which is also a clever idea. BTW - if you can get your rug an inch or two off the wall then it will be even more effective at absorption.

I previously had 4 pieces of RPG omnifussors at the rear wall. Shifted them to the front wall and placed CD racks at the rear wall. In other words, I had diffusion at both front and rear walls. I find this configuration to be better than having diffusion at front and absorption at the back behind the listening position. The sound is spread out more uniformly without losing energy especially in the high frequencies. I already have absorption at both side walls. Too much absorption kills the high frequencies, dynamics and soundstage. Used moderately will yield excellent results.