Speakers that sound great in terrible rooms

@keeferdog  

My room is a little larger than yours - 14 x 26 x 8 1/2 basement room, poured concrete floor and wall behind the speakers.  Other long wall faces outside (walk-out basement), other two are interior framed finished drywall.  BIG speakers with BIG subs.  My problems were much less severe than yours.  That said, here are a few suggestions.  

I suggest that you go to @home, Hobby Lobby or a similar type of store and buy artificial plants.  Big and full with 2" to 5" long leaves, as tall as you can get to fit under your ceiling.  If possible, put them behind your speakers, in the corners and behind you   Small, maybe 4 foot plants, on the side walls between you and the speakers.  They act as big diffusers.  That will take care of sound above the upper bass.  Also absorbs the sound to help "downstairs."  

Bass might be a harder problem.  Try decoupling the speakers from the floor.  Try using books before investing anything.  if you have some Vibrapods laying around try those in the correct rating.  Spikes might not help because they are coupling the speaker to the floor.    

I'm using the plants in this manner and it works great. Just a suggestion for the floors without any experience to back it up.

Larsen 6.2 or 8 would be my choice I think

Review:  https://positive-feedback.com/Issue69/larsen8.htm

A dealer with whom I have spoken about them at length. He has them in his home living room, a hard room to fill with good audio:
https://bigearstereo.com/product-category/brands/larsen/

I used to attend many audio shows. The first thing I would look at when walking into a room was how many acoustic room treatments and system tweak toys were in play. The speakers and systems that impressed me were the ones that had none and sounded great. I would even question rooms that would set up the equipment and speakers in weird angles - something I would never do at home.

Dborden702 wrote: "I used to attend many audio shows. The first thing I would look at when walking into a room was how many acoustic room treatments and system tweak toys were in play. The speakers and systems that impressed me were the ones that had none and sounded great."

Nice to hear you notice and appreciate that when you come across it!

[brag] When someone speaks up at an audio show and says they like what they’re hearing in our room, I’ll sometimes say, "the secret is all the acoustic treatments we use." Whereupon they look around the room and notice that we aren’t using any. Just bare hotel room walls.

However the best was when we showed with an industry veteran electronics manufacturer who remarked that this was the FIRST time he had shown in a room where "we weren’t fighting against the room the whole time." [/brag]

On the other hand... having said all that, if the sound in our room sucks, I can’t very well blame it on the room now, can I?

Duke

One secret, which an ASC guy told me once, but I agree with, is listen to the music in the hallway. You can go up and down the hall and quickly pick out the well tuned rooms without ever having to walk in.

Honestly, I simply don't know how audiophiles audition most equipment in a hotel room, at all.