Does the first reflection point actually matter??

@OP,  so why did you not state exactly that in your first post?OP 

Hi Erik, there is a lot of well meaning advice being offered but most of it ill informed. This whole thing is a science with specific goals. Some posters claim that they adjust the toe-in of their speakers and everything sounds fine. Useless info this.

Correct treatment is truly transformative and if you are not prepared, for less than the cost of a mid-priced interconnect, to buy a suitable microphone and download for free, REW or HolmImpulse (as used by Geddes) then add bass traps and treat first reflection points. Just this will amaze you.

Unless you have your system set up on the long wall where sidewall reflections arrive much later you will need to absorb some of that energy to reduce smearing and congestion. The average room requires about 400ms for the sound to decay evenly across the frequency range by 60dB, known as T60. Tables are available online for different enclosed volumes.

Someone mentioned floor and ceiling reflections which of course is as important as the others. Here though a ceiling 'cloud' works extremely well and a small rug or no rug is fine. The cloud frame needs to be preferably 4" x 6ft x 8ft and hung with a 4" gap below the ceiling. This will act as a broad-band absorber, unlike wall to wall carpet which is narrow-band and harmful to the sound. Consider that your ears are a known, to your brain, fixed distance from the floor so these reflections are not as problematic. We have evolved to allow for this.

Diffusion is good in larger rooms, not so much in small ones. From experience I can confidently state that treating the modal region below the Schroeder frequency is the most effective if you wish to limit the amount of treatment. I'm talking about bass traps, real bass traps and not the silly little scraps of foam that cannot absorb anywhere near bass. They are physically just too small.

GIK do not make 'proper' broad-band absorbers because they will not sell well and would be a nightmare to ship, so they tend to oversell lesser units. I know somebody who returned a few because the room was too dead!

My best advice is to educate yourself as much as possible on this fascinating and immensely rewarding process by reading articles from the right source. Leo Beranek is tough going but the true authority, Foley from acoustic fields not so much.

@aj523, a good and sensible post. I use Dayton Omnimic V2 because I also need to measure the electro-acoustic and Thiele/Small speaker parameters but REW and HolmImpulse are free and do much the same.


@eric-squires, what is an "average audiophile'? You can only go so far by continual upgrading at great expense but all that extra detail and low noise floor you are paying for is being lost to strong early reflections. In fact at low frequencies where bass nulls occur that information is lost completely and you can not get it back with EQ. The more power you pump into it just cancels with the same power.

Multiple subs and bass traps are needed to smooth this problem out, a problem all domestic rooms have. If you consider the amount of time and money the 'average audiophile' spends on their system you would be better off embracing the subject than shying away from it. I am sure the cost of a mic. will be the cheapest and by far the biggest upgrade you can make. There is much on the net to help get a handle on this.

The software, apart from showing you waterfall plots which identify the most troublesome frequencies, will also help you position your speakers and subs.

Erik, I did not misread anything!
In your first post you merely asked about the importance of accurate positioning of the first reflection point.

Only 5 days later do you disclose, via your 'narrow question', that you are trying to help.

Your rude and dismissive comeback was not appreciated.