This is an excellent question. I've suggested on a number of occasions that people who are dealing with room issues (or dissatisfaction with pretty good systems) invest the time and effort required to measure and interpret room acoustics using REW and use those measurements as guidance in treating their rooms. I'm skeptical that I've actually convinced a single person to do so other than my son, who heard the difference with his own ears.
I was late to the room treatment party myself. In my case, I had no clue how much difference speaker and listening position alone could make, much less addition of bass traps and absorption panels. So the first obstacle for me was ignorance of what was possible.
The second obstacle was the time it took to learn what to do and how to do it. My retirement home has a dedicated listening room, but the room had a bunch of problems from suboptimal dimension ratios to flooring that was resonating badly. Had I not been retired, there is simply no way that I could have afforded the time investment to sort all this out. Even so, I've done my work in 4 phases over 5 years and I am still not done, although I am getting close. Initial work afforded modest returns because I didn't know enough to get the biggest bang for the buck. I'm guessing some people may buy a trap or two and don't do enough to make an appreciable difference so they give up.
Many audiophiles have more money than time, so time is subject to triage. Spending money on the next cable or tonearm is less painful than investing 100 hours of free time in getting the room right.
I was late to the room treatment party myself. In my case, I had no clue how much difference speaker and listening position alone could make, much less addition of bass traps and absorption panels. So the first obstacle for me was ignorance of what was possible.
The second obstacle was the time it took to learn what to do and how to do it. My retirement home has a dedicated listening room, but the room had a bunch of problems from suboptimal dimension ratios to flooring that was resonating badly. Had I not been retired, there is simply no way that I could have afforded the time investment to sort all this out. Even so, I've done my work in 4 phases over 5 years and I am still not done, although I am getting close. Initial work afforded modest returns because I didn't know enough to get the biggest bang for the buck. I'm guessing some people may buy a trap or two and don't do enough to make an appreciable difference so they give up.
Many audiophiles have more money than time, so time is subject to triage. Spending money on the next cable or tonearm is less painful than investing 100 hours of free time in getting the room right.