In-Room responce measurement with Legacy Focus SE speakers

@Audiom ...hah, funny coincidence

@erik_squires I am sure the manufacturer was mistaken and these are in fact, the 32dB gain boards. He's going to send me the correct ones soon. Thanks for your feedback. 

@audiom3  - If the delta is exactly 6 dB I strongly suspect you were missing a channel.

@amtprod Here you go.  The chart shows L=R which isn't the best way to do it, but I wanted to show a Class D manufacturer the chart with his amp (green) being much hotter than my Ayre, even though they have the same gain (26dB). 

After moving the speakers much further apart to accommodate my new 83" OLED, I have work to do with my panels and traps to help tame all of that extra bass energy.  I am going to experiment this weekend and try to enable the bass switch on the back of the Focus.  It has a centered frequency of 60Hz which will also help.  The Ayre amp never sounds over-powering even when up over 100dBs.  It remains clean and fairly balanced even though the bass is too strong, I like feeling the impact.  So I don't want to tame it too much.  The bass toggle switch on the back of the speakers may do the trick.

@amtprod man, it's been a long time since I've messed with REW.  I still have the UMIK-1 around here somewhere though.  Give me a bit of time and I'll try to do some measurements.  My Ayre power amp is away for a 'faulty' fault (blown fuse fault but never has it blown a fuse).  I should have it back in  a few weeks.  I'm also rearranging my media room due to buying a new LG 83" OLED (from a 65" OLED).  So my Focus SEs are going to be moved out 1.5-2' further to accommodate and I will need to dial-in the positioning....

Brass Monkey is the song I like to crank when I'm pissed at my neighbors!  That gets back at them every time! :D

@audiom3 Oh that is awesome to hear!!  I -LOVE-    my Studio HDs in my small living room Home Theater 2.5 channel set up.  I had Epos ES12s for awhile, which were "nice", but man the upgrade to the Studios was DRAMATIC!!!

I think with my fathers system, his speakers are in an enormous cavern, and there is a lot of reverb and ringing that are masking a fair amount of bas, (as noted and instructed by @erik_squires )   For him, the lack of bass is perfectly fine (he doesn't hear it that way), but for me......if I were playing Sabotage....YOU BETTER BE BRINGING THAT BASS!!!!!!!

Out of curiousity @audiom3  have you ever used REW and would you be able/willing to do an in room measurement?  I'd just like to see the difference in the bass response and levels comparatively.

I have both of the mentioned speakers.  Legacy Focus SEs in my main listening area and the Studio HDs in my PC setup.  Studio HDs are very fine speakers, indeed.  But nowhere near what you should be hearing from the Focus SEs.  I've been fortunate to live in my home for nearly 22 years.  And I've been into audio and HT long before that.  When I first moved in, I had Legacy Classic speakers.  They sounded fantastic and 'hit' or slammed really hard.  Then I moved up to Focus (originals).  The bass all but left even though I went from (4)10" bass drivers to (6)12" bass drivers.  So I went to work on sound panels and a few bass traps.  Tons of experimentation on speaker positioning as well... I'm talking countless hours of moving (even by mere fractions of an inch), listening for a few days and then moving again.  It took a lot of time and effort between placing panels in the right places and speaker positioning.  But once I upgraded to the new Focus SEs, all I needed to do was find the sweet spot of positioning.  If I put on something like the Beastie Boys, I get a very nice, full body massage.  You should be getting gobs of deep bass from these things.

Here is the room "treated" sort of over the top with utilizing what we have on hand, and making the largest change to hear/measure what is improved/worsened.  From the RT60 measurements, you can see that we dramatically reduced the echo/ringing from over 700ms to just around 500ms, which some state is around average/acceptable in most contexts. 

Also attaching measurement sheet to show where things are placement and distance wise. 

@erik_squires Agree on all points.  I'll send you a message on a couple details, and a sketch of the room and dimensions, so you specifically have a better idea. 

I think the beam will be more or less OK. It’s too close to your head to reflect directly, but the ceiling above your head is ripe for treatment.

One radical listening approach is to toe the speakers in so they cross in front of your head. This minimizes the reflection against the side walls. They also seem to be too far out into the room to reinforce the bass well though, so, with an eye on the AM room simulator, consider pushing them backwards when you have that back wall treated.

Honestly though I'd move the speakers AND the couch forward as well.

@erik_squires great insights again.  I was just doing reading up on the specific frequencies and energy/directionality.  I have been diving into that AM Acoustics web site as well, which has been PERFECT for this exact exercise: everything I am even roughly measuring and hearing, it is show as well.  It mathematically predicts the RT60 in sync to what I measured, and it is also telling me the exact same higher energy frequencies with specific notes to test. 

Here is a photo of the empty room: no diffusion.  I'll post the full semi-arc at the speakers and it's corresponding measurements to show the difference (now that I finally figured out what I was doing wrong with posting images!!!!)
Of note but not obvious is the 18"x18" boxed beam overhead, just "in front" of the seating position.

OP:

Reputable makers like GIK and ATS (there’s a third brand that is often recommended to me which I’ve forgotten, but not ASC) have the absorption coefficients listed in Sabines or something like that. More Sabines = more absorption.

Also, given the strength of the 5 kHz time you might want to concentrate (but not exclusively) behind the listener and speakers. The reason is that speakers get directional by this frequency, and given the time is still so high it’s quite likely you have a back/forth reflection going on there.

If you felt like making some semi-circular diffusors behind the listening location those  would probably help a great deal.

Well, if I interpret this correctly it's exactly what we expected.  When you go looking for room treatments you want to focus on panels that are most effective from 700Hz upwards.  This should be (if my memory is correct) mostly the 2" type of panels.  It is worth including about 1/3rd of them as combination diffusion / absorbers so you don't end up with too dead of a room. 

Once these times come down it will be worth revisiting.

Also, don't forget the floor and ceiling!!!  The floor is easy to treat if not done already with carpeting and rugs.  The ceiling you might want to wait until you finish placing the speakers as the area between them and listening location deserves extra treatment.

@erik_squires 🤣🐴🐐🐘🦏!!!!

So: here is an RT60 plot of the room untreated for a quick reference:

Next morning he said it was like being in a zoo enclosure. 

Well, that's a little bit different.  Your brain isn't trying to separate the snoring from the words in this case, or the reflections from the music, but if you were trying to pick out 1 specific snore... 😂

@mijostyn  - That sounds like you are replying to something I said, but I'm not  sure what that was. 

@erik_squires "Also worth noting that studies have shown that having meetings in highly reflective rooms is literally exhausting."  Yup, I think we have all experienced that first hand in bars and restaurants, and theaters.  That's why when my father said "I don't like listening to music above "X" setting----I don't need to listen loud---it's just too aggravating", but I thought 'man I can barely really hear it, and for sure can't FEEL music?!!?', then checked on the DB meter and it was at 64+ DB, I knew it was the room acoustics. 

I work in wildland fire, and one year we had to stay at a fire camp that was in a school.  The Incident Team thought it would be great to have everyone sleep in the gymnasium.  I told my crew "no way....we'll find a different spot outside, even if it rains a little".  Couple crew said 'no way, I'm not risking getting wet, I'm going in the gym!'  Well, shove 800 fire fighters in a gym, and SNORING, and NO ONE is sleeping.  One of the guys ended up coming outside.  Next morning he said it was like being in a zoo enclosure. 

@mark200mph I am really glad for your comment!  I was hoping enough folks would be able to chime in and make this educational.  I'm trying to learn what web site to use to host images that I can post in here so folks can see some of what is going on. 

@erik_squires I the Earthworks Mic. It is not USB, but it does not require a calibration curve because it is dead flat and smoothly omnidirectional.

......however, get this.....in doing a REW frequency sweep at the seated position, there was NO change in bass room frequency response! Yet, you can easily hear maybe 15% more "bass"!!

I did mention that the frequency response measurements would not help you in this case. 😀

This has to do with hour our ear/brain integrates signal volume over time. That is, the perception of bass, mid, treble levels is an average over time as opposed to an instantaneous measure. With very live rooms like yours we perceive mid/treble as much louder because it’s staying with us longer. The total energy is Direct Sound + Sound from up to 0.6 seconds ago = 1.4x amount of perceived sound (as an example).

Our ear/brain mechanism is exposed to a lot more of that energy during a listening session. As we move to cut the reflection times out the total energy there gets cut, and now we hear bass.

But oh man do some people have a really difficult time with this concept. 🤣

Also worth noting that studies have shown that having meetings in highly reflective rooms is literally exhausting. Your brain has to spend so much time listening through the reverb that it tires itself out making it harder to concentrate by the end of a lecture or meeting. If you’ve ever gone home after a long meeting feeling totally drained you probably had this to blame.

This is why colleges repeatedly invest in sound absorption in lecture halls.

OP:

Don’t go buying OmniMic because I use it. REW had similar capabilities, you just have to check the settings when you do a sinusoidal sweep. There’s usually some parameter that say "stop listening after x milliseconds" I’m just not familiar enough with REW. That’s the gating limit. There’s possibly/probably also a way to blend the gated measurements with the ungated for bass. That’s something OmniMic just does out of the box but I’m pretty sure REW has something similar.

Alternatively, if you ARE using REW with the gating turned on, it will cut the bass response off.

I am sure you've all seen John's video series on dealing with his rooms, but these (there are 2 or 3?) are exactly what @erik_squires  has been helping me with.

 

@erik_squires Morning.  Thanks again for things to try.  I'll look more into the "gated measurements" method.  I'll also look into OmniMic.  REW is really incredibly powerful program (free even!), and I think can be used even at a very surface level to help gain some objective info.  In my system/room at home REW helped me figure out exactly what frequencies were making bass boom, which helped me make some parametric EQ changes.  If you get time you should give it a look. 

Father is SUPER sensitive to bass, so for him little bass is perfectly ok to him.There is no way he will move his speakers (he can be, 'intractable'? about some things).  As we discussed, big goal is getting rid of the room echo/delay/reverb to a more moderate-mild level.  Like you noted, that alone will bring up the level or presence of existing bass. 

AM Acoustics Room Mode Simulator: I meant to say thanks for this!!!  I had found that awhile ago and forgot about it and where to find it!!  This is super helpful! 

@mijostyn I think if I can get him to do even moderate absorbing panels, it will make sizeable improvements that he will like.  I think the space COULD be perfect/exemplary and world class acoustically, but like we all know do we want to go thru the effort labor and expense?  In his space, it wouldn't take much really since there is no bass management issues (other than the lack of it!!!! :D )
But maybe I can talk him into a subwoofer at some point!  But these things take careful progress.  I think as we get older in ways we can become sort of set and resistant to things....even if we heard a difference, and even if that difference were 'objectively better'. 
And Erik is 100% correct about the bass coming out-- in putting absorbing panels directly inline with the face of the speakers and in-between, (so imagine 2, 2x4 insulation panels on chairs right and left of each speaker, and 4 of them in the 7' space between the speakers again 'in line' with the face of the speaker), you can easily hear a LOT fuller tone and sound, "as if you did an EQ boost in bass frequencies"......however, get this.....in doing a REW frequency sweep at the seated position, there was NO change in bass room frequency response!  Yet, you can easily hear maybe 15% more "bass"!!   
-----"Also, we want the room to interact a little.  Diffuse sounds with a steady decay are really important to avoid a headphone-like experience and give us the illusions of the listening venue."--- as Erik notes here, the above treatment I did in fact created a bit of this effect: it was JARRING (in context)!  I played a familiar track for him and removed the panels fast, and you can hear almost a pressure decrease in your ears. 

I think with how much I would bet my father would actually agree to do acoustic treatment wise, he would correct 30-40% of the room echo reverb, and gain maybe 20% more mid bass presence. 

The only caveat is that bass does not respond to room treatment.

Kind of, sort  of....

All my suggestions so far have been subtractive.  That is, to remove sounds in the room.  If you only subtract mid-treble then your balance shifts to the bass.

From experience and theory I can state that this absolutely brings out more bass and make speakers sound more powerful (I'd say larger but that sets some readers off into  an irrational tizzy). 

Will it fully fix the OP's issue? I'm not sure, but I do now his judgement about the bass problems will change after the room is treated. 

Also, we want the room to interact a little.  Diffuse sounds with a steady decay are really important to avoid a headphone-like experience and give us the illusions of the listening venue.

@amtprod There is no such thing as overdoing it. The more you kill what the room is doing the more you will hear what is in the recording including the third dimension, which is not the sense of depth as in distance it is the sense that the instrument of voice in front of you is a three dimensional object. The only caveat is that bass does not respond to room treatment. You start with enough acoustic power to do the job, then you tailor it with digital signal processing to sound right. 

This is a great discussion lots of thing to try and will keep us from getting boared.great reasoning.

Frequency tests show 130hz and lower just drops like a stone.  Example : 1000hz is at -24db, and 80hz is at -44db at the nominal listening levels. 

Well, that does sound bad, but use gated measurements instead of sinusoidal pink noise.  This will exclude the room.  Not sure how REW works, but with OnmiMic I get gated measurements above a certain frequency, and overall below that.  If it really is that bad you should consider heavily treating an area of the wall and pushing the speakers into it to get at least some bass re-inforcement. 

Ya just wanna jinx things, don'tcha?!?!

Ahem, I'm not the one who declared there were no bass problems... that's exactly when the jinx happened!

@erik_squires Ya just wanna jinx things, don'tcha?!?! 🤣

"Don't be so sure, yet.  You can't hear bass problems because you can't hear bass.  Once the mid-treble issues are dealt with these may become apparent and need to be dealt with separately."

With the minimal panels and other makeshift absorber/diffusers I'm playing with, I won't say there's "bass", but things have at least a little more flesh so I know I'm going in the right direction.  With 2, 12" woofers I would have to think mechanically there is enough umpfh there to make things move (ported enclosures as well).

@mijostyn I agree with you.  To me, his space needs 2 subwoofers (at least at this point it sounds like they do).  Frequency tests show 130hz and lower just drops like a stone.  Example : 1000hz is at -24db, and 80hz is at -44db at the nominal listening levels.  I need to be careful though, father is VERY sensitive to bass and can be irritated instantly if he thinks/feels like it's 'boomy' or loud. I have heard a ton of systems with extremely articulate and impactful bass-you hear the detailed pluck or hit of bass, but you also feel it's impact and weight.  With his system currently, it's just mainly the audible portion of the note/pluck/hit.

However as you and Erik have noted the greater issue is room echo/reverberation/decay and the corresponding impacts on phase and timing of the frequencies.  Like you mentioned, we need to break things up, diffuse and absorb in general (there's nearly nothing in the listening area from the chair to the front wall-just the speakers.  Just monkeying with a handful of panels and some ladders with blankets in key spots against the walls is showing how dominant the echo is in the room, and how it's coloring and even creating a cancelling or veiling of ACTUAL recorded room qualities \ instrument qualities, etc.  He's able to hear at least some improvements, but he's also very sensitive to changes so just easing in on things.

I think I have things calculated and types of panels he should get and install, but I wish there was like a diffusion/absorber kit you could rent to test out!!!!!!!!!!  I want to be sure to preserve the immense sound stage and depth he has, but tame the echo reverb, and "warm things up" so there's more feel and presence to the sound.

@amtprod The problem with rooms that size is you start to get into echo problems. That echo gives away the size of the room. You want to hear the acoustics in the recording, not those of your room. You wind up in the wrong venue. The solutions are to break it up with a wall or barrier, a lot of sound absorption and speakers with tightly controlled radiation such as horns, dipoles and line sources. In a room that size I would want to see at least four 15" subwoofers. My room, is 16 feet wide and I use eight 12" subwoofers. Getting out below 30 Hz at volume takes a lot of driver. Speaker specs are very misleading. We do not listen to our systems 1 meter from the speakers and they never mention the room. A speaker is going to sound different depending on the room. Another thing a room that large might benefit from is a line source. A full frequency line source needs to be 32 feet tall or stretch from floor to ceiling. Line source speakers project sound better by an order of magnitude which is why you see them at big concerts. Sound Labs would make you an electrostatic speaker 40 X 118" With four 15" subwoofers you could have one h-ll of a party. 

  He's insanely lucky that he has NO true oddities or issues like bass booms that can be very difficult to remedy.

Don't be so sure, yet.  You can't hear bass problems because you can't hear bass.  Once the mid-treble issues are dealt with these may become apparent and need to be dealt with separately.

@erik_squires
1) "Try recording your speakers and then listening that with headphones, or a friend’s voice in the room."  THAT IS A BRILLIANT IDEA!!!!  He has a very good headphone amplifier and headphones, so this would be a perfect exercise.  I can play a couple of his favorite tracks and use my Zoom H4N stereo audio recorder: it is mostly very good at accurately recording full tonal range and area, not a specified ' directed lobed area of recording: should be very similar to the human head and sphere of hearing. 

2)  That is exactly why I had started by placing those absorbing panels DIRECTLY next to the speakers--to help him hear the 'opposite' extremity, before the sound even reached at least the side walls and front wall.  Even then, from the sitting position if you snapped your fingers you can hear it vibrate and almost echo.  I look at speakers like a semi-directed rock-being-dropped-in a-pond with square banks.  The sound radiates in ALL directions, at varying intensity and  phase: some frequencies cancelled, some reinforced, some refract and reflect, some gradually fade away.  It makes complete logical sense for most to grip onto "first reflection points".  It is insanely complex really how we try to reproduce a 3 dimensional musical performance with two speakers, who project dominantly from ONE dimension---so that first reflection is a very simple spot to lock onto "fixing" issues this audio-problem creates. 

He doesn't have nearly enough to really properly make effective changes, but I think I can present enough of a positive shift that he will like what he hears more, and will follow thru with getting a nice series of absorbers/diffusers to help him really get the most the system is capable of creating.  He's insanely lucky that he has NO true oddities or issues like bass booms that can be very difficult to remedy.  He just needs to break up and absorb things mostly. 

Happy Easter! (and thanks for continued help and idea!)

~alan

Want to make a few points here:

1. One major reason we have trouble hearing a room is the ear/brain mechanism is actively filtering, which takes actual energy (i.e. the consumption of carbohydrates) and is tiring. Try recording your speakers and then listening that with headphones, or a friend’s voice in the room. You’ll be amazed at how much of the room reaches your ears but which your brain filters out in order to process the meaning of the words which were spoken. Do t his a few times and you can develop the skill to turn the filtering on and off. Takes a little practice.

2. IMHO, the Audioophle consensus is wrong about first reflection points. They matter but only if you already have a controlled acoustical environment. That is, you need a certain critical mass of absorbers before the 1st reflection points can make a perceptible difference. I’m not saying first reflection points never matter but that you shouldn’t get tunnel vision about them. Given a choice between an overall well treated room with controlled reflection time but no panels at 1st reflections and a room with only 1st reflection points treated the former will absolutely win. For this reason, do both, and don’t be disappointed if you place 4 panels and don’t hear a big difference.

3. Don’t forget the AM Acoustics Room mode simulator which in your case could be a real life saver. It will help you place your speakers and listening location more ideally, which you should do before considering 1st reflection points.

I am sure most have seen this video series, but just in case I thought I would post.

I found this very useful to hear 'before and after' from his space....yet played thru my fathers system and echoy room--so it's VERY obvious the echo/reverb.

 

@mijostyn   The room is just so large, in a VERY large full size basement (it's effectively the nicely finished region of the whole basement  with the basic 'foundation walls' as the boundaries, (listening area = 34'L x 24'W 10'H) with the other areas of the basement as unfinished and even open-wall-stud framing mainly.  So to my ears and measuring, the Legacy speakers never really "pressurize" the room/basement.   So lucky for him, he could always add subwoofers if really needed--but I think for his room/system the biggest boom (see what I did there) would be from dealing with the "empty chamber syndrome" effect. 

In placing a few simple insulation panels directly between and aside the speakers (2, 2'x4' yellow insulation panels) in line with the face of the speakers: two in the middle, two on each side, you not only hear dramatically less echo/ringing, but things actually sound like they have more body to them, and warmer.  Yet, in doing a room frequency sweep measurement, there is NO change in frequency response.  I get the feeling if properly treated, the room and system will sync together better and maybe there won't be 'more bass', but all the hash/echo.reverd will be cut and enough body created to really bring out what I know the system and speakers are capable of.

I would love to get him the KEF unit (2 of them): I had heard two of them in a friends showroom space, and they were excellent value for function.  I know his Legacy will perfectly create the tone and detail of a bass note guitar (there is ZERO bass reinforcement/boom at any frequency), but would really benefit from a bit more "body feel" so to speak. 
Happy Easter
~alan

@amtprod If the room is really bad there will be positions where the woofers won't be functioning. You have to walk around to find the bass.

The single most important aspect to building a great system is finding a good room to put it in. When I was a graduate student down in Miami the huge showroom at Sound Components sounded great. It was something like 30 X 100 feet. In the meanwhile my system was crammed into a studio apartment and the bass was....difficult. In the public health service I rented a house that was open concept. None of the spaces were particularly large, but walls were missing everywhere and it sounded great. The house was one big diffusor. When I built my own house I had that in mind eliminating walls and doors where possible. I also use speakers with very controlled dispersion which helps a lot. Unfortunately, It does nothing for bass. That is where 4 subwoofers come in. If you are running on a budget Audiokinesis sells it's system for something like $2500 for an amp and four subwoofers. If you can spend more Kef makes a great little balanced force unit and Martin Logan has a pair of balanced force subs. After that it is Magico and even if you can afford them they are big and ugly. Everything else on the market is standard fare. If used with digital bass management they can be OK but not as good as the units I mention above. 

@yoyoyaya HA!!! Bigger is not always better!!!  It's funny his space is over sized and empty, and my space is VERY small and VERY not symmetrical. 
I honestly think someone could have a really cool business of doing live -[ place your favorite instrument here]- sessions in someones listening space and sound system to help them dial in tone/frequency issues, and find short comings in the room or equipment chain.  

@amtprod - if I wasn't on the other side of the Atlantic, I'd come over and do it for you :)) As the old saying goes, big room, big problems.

@erik_squires A lot of us read and take your advice.  But it is those who don't who are vocal and argumentative.  Often taking your advice results in quiet satisfaction of a problem solved.  

Jerry

@yoyoyaya I was almost thinking the same thing!  Like, I wish I had and played the guitar, and could play a tune in the space, then play the same song thru the sound system and illustrate how much is "one generation of echo/reverb sound", and when the other is COMPOUNDED echo/reverb!!

@erik_squires I’m on your side man! You were 100% right, and dead on!!!!! Maybe you’re just ahead of your time and they are behind the curve? 😆

So he happened to have 6 of those yellow 2" fiberglass panels (unfinished). I talked him into letting me place them stacked two high directly between the speakers (in line) and directly next to the outside left and right of the speakers.
This had a MASSIVE effect on the sound quality.
The RT60 showed those exact same trouble spectrum, but instead of being 600ms to 0ver 800ms of reverb, the were cut down to 400 to 200ms!!!
Granted, if I snap my fingers or clap my hands, you still hear an echo, but I am ’moving the needle’ and getting him to actually realize he has horrible reverb/echo, and can hear some dramatic shifts to the opposite effect.
I am hoping to now find ON the walls where to put these 6 (which will lessen the new ’nulling’ effect by at least half), and make some strong suggestions for getting actual acoustic panels installed of size.

I think the actual biggest issue is his ceiling: the greatest expanse with NOTHING on it. His front wall doesn’t even have the equipment on it: it’s just bare, so I am going to start with that wall in general, first.

I honestly haven’t heard ANY room bass bloom as of yet, and I would be a little surprised if I did (I even did the walk around against the walls and never found any more bass). But, with the panels directly next to the speakers , things actually did sound ’fuller’ and warmer, and the bass ’felt’ more present. There was NO change to the frequency sweep...but the RT60 as I mentioned was dramatically different. I’m trying to get him to learn to hear what is actual recorded room/studio spatial sound (studio echo), vs his-room-created echo, or over-enhancing echo (imagine a recording with studio atmosphere and echo/time delay sound, coupled with a room that creates the same effect from the speakers!!).

There were a couple singer-guitar solo pieces I played that he immediately didn’t like, "it sounds a bit dead, like there’s no room or space where they are playing": yes, that is because there isn’t any (the tracks were VERY closely mic’d).....but does it sound like they are HERE, in the room with us?" Then I would play a track that did have a bit of studio space (more open room mic’d), and he noticed a big difference in the two different tracks. Then, I removed the panels entirely from that second track, and asked him "does it sound a bit much, like ’too much’ sound for just a guy and a guitar? In comparison?" He sort-of admitted it sounded better with the panels in place, but I could also tell that he was struggling to sort of be open to/accept what he was hearing (I’m learning a lot too).

There are so many recordings and sessions and events that are actually poorly or not the best recordings, or mic work, or space...but when I hear those things on my system, I am nearly elated because I can hear and feel how different recording CAN be. Like an NPR Tiny Desk of Tyler Childers, vs "Our Vinyl" recording session of the same 3 Tyler Childer songs, vs "Red Barn Radio" (all three on Youtube). Thanks to the videos, you can see where things are microphoned, the room treatment, the space. On my system the ROOM changes with the session: the sound matches the different spaces, different tone acoustics and room space cues. With my dads system-they all sound ’mostly’ the same, and lack impact and feel.

OP:

I was pretty much right, and yet no one on Audiogon ever takes my advice. Sigh. 😪

The good news is these frequencies are easy to deal with without getting too thick/exotic or expensive. GIK and ATS acoustics are places to start. GIK makes some panels you can have printed on with artwork.

Let your T60 be your guide and tackle the problem frequencies first. When you are done the bass will be more exposed and you’ll want to start considering speaker placement and bass traps (considering, not buying) if your room modes are severe. You may even end up with a system that sounds like it has too much bass, or has severely strong notes. All that will happen in time.

@OP Nice place to record in with that reverb. Not so good for listening.

@erik_squires and @fthompson251  and @elliottbnewcombjr 
I did some real crude measurements (REW) and noted in looking at the RT60 measurements, he has around 600+ms of 'reverb'  from 1200Khz up to 15,000khz, with the highest being 800ms at 5000khz where it plateaus mostly to 15,000khz .  

I did a little clap test.....yea....it's a cave.

@elliottbnewcombjr   I had uploaded an image to Flickr online, and gone thru the process you mentioned but for some reason when I hit "post response", I immediately get a warning screen "you are currently being blocked".  I need to figure out the work around or better hosting site online (maybe dropbox?).
Thank you for helping confirm what I was doing though!  I'll be moving things today to test out just tonal responses. 

@fthompson251 I think you're right.  I'm going to try just shifting everything backwards (towards the front wall) and starting there just to hear the difference/comparison.  Always finding doing one extreme to the other with some things really helps you know at least the boundaries of things. 

Build a Listening Room within the Basement,

say13 wide x 20 deep, x your height (NOT a square) Then your materials/surfaces/reflections will be much easier to deal with.

Others can suggest ’better’ room sizes, and then, within that space, try the speakers on the short end, or along the longer side walls

I have always had my speakers on the short ’front’ end, i.e. currently

https://www.audiogon.com/systems/9511

btw, my speakers are on wheels, easily adjusted toe-in for one listener or two (both off-center), and: for best listening, I roll them forward and in, further away from rear and side walls.