How to do room acoustics correction the easy way.

To do it thoroghly It’s more complex than that ....  Room correction software is NOT your secret weapon.  Alas, you can’t simply apply digital room correction to fix your acoustics. 

Room EQ can tame some issues, but it can’t correct for long reverberation times or comb filtering caused by strong early reflections (like those nasty reflections produced by speaker boundary interference 

To tame these problems you have two weapons in your arsenal: smart room layout and acoustic treatment.

For the latter, start  by mounting bass absorbers and treating your first reflection points. Then ideally apply  treatment to the ceiling and all walls of your room if possible with modular acoustic control panels, / sound absorption acoustic panels . Expert applications with all their professional gizmos instead of a DIY cheap as you can go approach is worth considering 

Number 1 - Treat the room first.

Number 2 - You'll get purer results if you apply corrections before the DAC.

miniDSP offers DIRAC Live in pre/post dac versions.

Best,

Erik

Here is a streamer/DiracLive unit that would go before your DAC:

https://www.minidsp.com/products/streaming-hd-series/shd-studio

Here's an analog DiracLive that you'd put before your amp:

Without doing my normal show, while "room correction" software works, it works MUCH better with proper room acoustic treatment.

With a very reflective, sealed room ARC won't work nearly as well as one with controlled reflections (absorption and diffusion) as well as bass traps.

Everyone is right acoustic panels may be needed. I went cheap route to test waters then went to thick Dow Corning type board. Cheap way to test is go to A/C supply store and pick up a 10x4, 1 inch thick insulation duct board for $50 to see what results you get. 10x4 will give you 4 2x2 panels for behind speaker and 2 for reflection points and 2 for behind speakers and 4 6x2 panels for the corners. If you like results buy some burlap from fabric store and keep what you have. If you want to go further buy some premade panels already covered or buy some thicker Dow Corning panels and do diy.

So more info.  Room is a converted garage 24x22x10.  No longer looks like a garage.  Sheet rock walls. Lots of wall treatments.  GE Refs sit 4’ out from the wall with 9’ between and 9’ to listening positions.  Directly behind the sofa I use, there is a large weight machine and treadmill.  I know I am having reflection problems, I hear it as smeared midrange...guitar and vocals.  I hung 4 heavy shipping blankets immediately behind sofa about 6’ high that extended about 8’  across. Smear and edgyness went away..  That’s what I hope to mitigate with room correction software.  I don’t want the blankets as a trap...

To continue, will my plan work or should I do more room treatment.  I have so many reflection points before  the wall opposite the speakers...

Thanks mc.....

Thanks for the help folks...should have posted a year ago!

Headphones.  Done. 

The question begs an "and" in place of the "or."

If your garage is bare walls then your midrange is being "smeared" by slap echo. Stand near one wall, clap hands, hear the flutter as the echo bounces back and forth. That's slap or flutter echo.  

There's a whole range of different things to attend to in a room like this. Trying to correct response alone like with a DAC is actually the last thing to try, if ever. Wouldn't touch that to save my life. Too serious about sound quality.  

That's why you read the book. To learn. You have so much to learn you can't believe it. Owens Corning 703 is a standard acoustic panel you can find at many hardware stores. Its an absorber. These are great for stopping reflections like flutter echo but it does not take a lot before the room starts to sound too dead. Diffusers are panels that reflect but by sending the sound off in many different directions, shifting timing, etc. This also breaks up echo but in a way that preserves spaciousness without making the room dead like absorbers do.

You want this balance and there's really only two ways to get it. One is pay through the nose for some guy to tell you what to do and sell you a lot of very expensive panels. Great results, but you could buy a car and a nice one too for what they want. The other way is get a few panels (much better and easier to work with than your blankets) and start experimenting. 

That's what I did. Actual plain OC703 panels on the walls. https://theanalogdept.com/c_miller.htm Sounded good but too dead. More recently looks like this https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 Could have paid someone for this. But I know what that costs, and what a crap shoot it can be. This way takes longer, but costs a lot less, and I actually learned a lot about what's going on in the process. 

It all started with the book. Read the book. Seriously. Study it. Learn it. Live it. You can thank me later.

Thanks to all...bought the Harley book and ordered the acoustic panels.

Update....I purchased 6 Corning 703 panels, 4’ X 2’ X 2”.   I placed one behind each speaker and 2 in each front corner placed on top of each other for an 8”height.   I was shocked at the difference in bass resolution.  The sound stage opened up voices became more precise.  I just was not prepared for how much improvement there was.  Thanks all for the guidance and advice.  What an amazing bang for the buck.  I’ve been in front of the hifi for over an hour listening to music I’ve heard 100’s of times and it does sound better!.. Grateful this is a room my wife doesn’t have decor authority over!