Room Treatment? How important is it to treat the wall behind/between the speakers?

@ntpc4 Thanks, I haven't seen that calculator before, it confirmed I've got the side wall treatments in the correct spots after moving my speakers out to 5ft.

@bimmerlover I've check out your VS before - very nice!

@kevinzoe Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I have moved the speakers out to 5ft which is much better. The calculator confirmed the left wall panel is in a good spot & I do have the bay windows treated as well. I tried the sound blocks next to the speakers it sounds better when they are behind them. I have REW (but I dont know how to use it) and a calibrated mic (but no way to connect the output from my PC) but I also have DIRAC Live so I can run some test tones through the BS NODE again and see what has changed. 

Right now it sounds really good with the speakers pulled out. Soundstage is much deeper and coherent.

I put a couple of adsorption panels up against the painting as a quick test and even that helps, so I have no doubt I need to #1 replace the painting with a diffuser #2 see if I can figure something out for the ceiling  - perhaps something like this might work?  and #3 add some corner bass treatments like the GIK Soffits.

Thanks to everyone that contributed so far.

@kellerjr01 VERY nice system! How do deal with the big window?

@kevinzoe I took some measurements with DIRAC and a MiniDSP calibrated mic and posted a screen shot in my virtual system. Symmetry doesn't look terrible but I have no idea how bad the peaks and nulls really are.

I can apply the filter to the NODE but obviously not the analogue source. 

If anyone cares to take look and provide an opinion it would be much appreciated. 

Thank you.

@mashif thanks - note there is no rear wall per se, the area opens up to an open floor plan so the actual rear wall is 50ft from the speakers. 

I've got REW working and I've taken some measurements, but I dont know how to interpret the results.

Is anyone able / willing to analyze the file or know of someone that can for a fee? 

@kellerjr01 Thanks for posting the pic - you put a lot of time and effort into the room.

A couple of quick points. The DIRAC graph is the measured (uncorrected) response. 

Also I used the room calculator posted above to check the location of the side wall first reflections. I had originally used a mirror. The calculator and the mirror are in agreement. 

I’ll found the cable I need to connect my laptop to the system to generate test tones from REW and I have a MiniDSP mic. I'll work on figuring out how to use REW next. 

Thank you all for the advice. I could move the diffusers on the left side wall to the front wall and use an absorption panel instead. The right wall (bay window) already has an absorption panel + drapes. 

@kellerjr01 Thanks! I have tried the speakers 5ft from the front wall but the bass gets boomy + it puts the listening position too far into the living room.

I plan to add something like the GIK Soffit Bass Traps floor-to-ceiling eventually but there are other priorities for $$$ atm. 

@fthompson251 I sent pics and dims to GIK and that is exactly what they recommended.

@kellerjr01 I took your advice and tried moving the speakers out again - front baffles are now 5 ft from the wall now. I could go another foot.

So far I like it.

I realized I had added more treatments since I last tried them that far out in the room and the listing position is fine - speakers are 7ft apart and listing position is 8-9ft now without moving the chairs.

2 other take away’s

1. There is significantly more agreement on this thread/subject of acoustics vs the many, many power cable threads (I am NOT a cable denier which should be evident from my virtual system, cables matter)

2. Anyone thinking about improving sound quality in an untreated room by swapping cables (or other tweaks) should pause and look hard at acoustics first  

@kevinzoe 

Thank you Kevin for the very kind offer. I will send a PM when ready. I have a few things to get done before taking measurements and looking at next steps.

I experimented a lot over the weekend and Monday moving around speakers, acoustic panels/blocks as well as the listening position.

NOTE: I know a single frequency response measurement form DIRAC doesn’t tell the whole story but my goal at the moment is to try and get some L/R symmetry and get rid of extreme peaks and nulls.

I took down the RockWool-stuffed painting and the room sounded terrible, harsh, so it was doing something positive albeit likely not ideal.

So I decided to order another pair of 24x46 GIK Wood Slat panels for the side wall as an interim (cheap) solution and moved the existing ones to the front wall behind and between the speakers and I installed a 24x48x2 absorption panel at the first reflection point on the left wall in their place until the wood slats arrive.

This made a big difference – the harsh glare went away and the sound stage was better, for example in terms of vocals being deeper in the stage and instruments arranged in various locations on the sound stage. 

I also moved the 4 Sound Blocks around in every configuration imaginable, and they made almost no difference to the DIRAC frequency response measurements except when I stacked all 4 (2x2) on the right wall about 8ft from the front wall. This helped the 59-60Hz null but they look ridiculous.

Ultimately, I was able to get almost the same effect by moving the primary listing/measuring position forward a foot or so, so that it is under the 8ft ceiling rather than under the vaulted ceiling behind the listening position and moved the speakers back a bit as well.

Here is what I learned:

1. The answer to my original question is YES!!!
2. Installing additional acoustic treatments to treat low lower frequencies without a plan based on measurements is a crap shoot.  

So next step is install the slat diffusers on the left side wall and then take some REW measurements.      

Thanks @kevinzoe I'm looking forward to getting some help with the REW stuff but in the meantime thankyou very much for all the suggestions and support.