Room Treatment

IME, Acoustic panels are primarily designed to absorb sound waves to reduce room echoes and reverberation, while acoustic diffusers scatter sound waves to create a more balanced and natural-sounding acoustic environment. Check out some of the very best rooms in Audiogon Virtual systems to have better understanding and placement of these two very critical but different acoustic treatments. 

“what application works best for a standard 15x15 listening room with gypsum wallboard walls.”

I recommend you seek consultation from GIK, they provide free consultation. Whatever they recommend, I suggest you treat each area in steps. This will allow you to understand the impact of acoustic panels/diffusors and further evaluate the need to treat your room. It’s easy to overdo absorption and kill the liveliness of a space, especially in a smaller room; hence my recommendation for doing it in steps. Not knowing your room, we are just shooting in dark here. Let’s say you have a conventional room with four walls + ceiling which gives you five areas to address,

Front, Back, Sides, Ceiling and Corners.

Starting with the first reflection points (side walls and ceiling) usually gives the biggest improvement in clarity, while bass traps in corners help smooth out low-frequency response. The back wall can be tricky—some rooms benefit from absorption, while others need diffusion to maintain spaciousness.

Hope this helps!

@unreceivedogma

Yes, it is possible to over-treat a room. Over-treatment typically refers to,

- Excessive absorption of mid and high frequencies while leaving the low end untreated. This creates an unnatural, muffled sound with no liveliness or air.

- Lack of appropriate diffusion, which can make the room feel claustrophobic and sterile by removing natural spatial cues.

However, in a semi-anechoic room like yours, the goal is to minimize reflections almost entirely, creating an ultra-clean, controlled soundstage. In such rooms, the “liveliness” and spaciousness should come from the recording itself, not from the room reflections. If you’re thrilled with the sound of your system, you’ve probably nailed it.