What room treatment product have transformed your room or audio system?

For the guys who are thinking about digital room control, yes, it is a must. But, you have to use room treatment to resolve the worse issues. If you do not you are going to waste power and headroom,  possibly clip your filters and blow a speaker. Correcting a 6 dB deficit costs you 4 times the power, 10 dB 10 times the power. I have seen plenty of rooms 10 dB off at some frequencies. Without room control you can not make your system perform absolutely symmetrically at all frequencies. It is extremely hard, near impossible to get the best imaging without it. The problem is that no two speakers have exactly the same frequency response. Then you put them in different locations and the variations wider further. Doing this by ear is futile even by millercarbon:-) The best set up techs will use a calibrated mic to test each speaker in the system then retest after adding room treatment. You can resolve the worse issues this way but fine tuning like this, a couple of dB here and there and getting the system symmetrical is impossible to do with room treatment. This is the best use of any room control system. 

I am not a big Dirac fan. I prefer purpose built units like the DEQX, Anthem and Trinnov units. I do not like the Lyngdorf units. They use the most primitive version of TacT's system (Lyngdorf was a share holder of TacT and was responsible for European distribution). Boz never licensed him to use his high power system. Lyngdorf also forces you to use his built in amplifier which has a hard time driving ESLs. I owned the TacT version for a while. So I am speaking from direct experience. 

It is impossible by ears with only passive materials treatment....I confirm mijostyn...

And the reason is exactly what he said...BUT there is a big but,

But room acoustic is not ONLY and MAINLY a passive sets of bouncing walls waiting to be measured with a precise test of "very precise" frequency...It is an heterogeneously pressurized engine...Sound is waves in an OCEAN where pression may vary...

Then the room is also a possible ACTIVE participant and materials treatment is only the PASSIVE side to acoustic controls....

Then all rule had exception, to made it by ears is possible, i did it...It is not "perfect" but not too away from perfect because the test is simple and it is not soundstage and imaging perception ONLY, those 2 concepts are important, but way more is the "TIMBRE" perception which is the benchmark test if you want to know if the room acoustic is able to give a good S.Q.

The only way to achieve it by ears is using ACTIVE non electronic controls, impossible tough in a living room; an Helmholtz array of 18 tubes and pipes finely tuned by their neck to their volume and distribued in a series of 3, with a Fibonacci ratio, with lengh spanning 8 feet to less than one feet and different volumes....This array modify greatly the frequencies response of the room in the main audible scales all at once adjusted by your ears, making the room no more a passive set of wall reflecting waves but an active pressurized Helhmoltz engine actively tuned to simultaneously the speakers response and the room response and IMPORTANTLY to your specific ears all at the same time.....

It takes a dedicated room to make that..... This is the only problem....

All my material treatment are homemade, and allmost all my devices...Cost: peanuts...Only fun....But long time to work adjustement.... But not so long for you if you know what you do.... Nobody explain that to me in audio thread it takes time for me to figure it out.... Audion thread are plague by electronic design vocabulary and marketing , not by acoustical deep laws and solutions....Audio is acoustic first not ONLY audio engineering sorry....


Never say it is impossible then .... I speak by my experiment....The test if you want to know if you succeeed is simple:

There is no way a voice or a piano, a harpsichord, a string orchestra or a brass orchestra could sound natural in most wrongly treated or non treated room especially not without active controls.... Even fine tuning each frequency with precise test frequency sample has his limitation and is PRECISE for ONE very,very precise spot .... Then i must add that my room is fine tuned so well, i could listen to 2 locations 5 feet apart.... One is better than all my 7 headphones(near listening) the other one more regular resemble a lived event filling my room with no sound coming from the speakers and no sound captive between the speakers....Why can i listen well in 2 spots? because i fine tune the room, one step at a time, simulateously for these 2 positions ....

That is my experiment...

I will buy a mic this summer to "refine" the speakers response using my ears also but it will be a fine tuning NOT the main tool for my room at all...Like mijostyn did with all the LIMITATIONS and cost that this method ask for...


Remember this: Even fine tuning each frequency scale one by one has his limitation and is PRECISE for ONE very .very precise spot and does not take in charge the structure of your specific ears, the frequency response is analysed not by your specific ears but by an apparatus, and for a definite set of test frequencies only.... It is a means to adjust the room/speakers, not a means to adjust your specific ears/room/ and speakers at the same time....Do you catch the "nuance" ?


 Total cost: NOTHING almost....

interesting topic. I have my wall behind my speakers treated and the  room has carpet and furniture. it also has a 1 ft. soffit from the ceiling that divides the room in half that faces the speakers.  should I be treating the flat surface of the soffit also?

Frame the soffit with an angle finish in drywall and taper with a radius into the flat of the ceiling Tom

Some interesting products mentioned! I haven’t thought of digital room control before.
I’ve been listening and adjusting the past few days and have gotten to the point where I’m really satisfied, a combination of panels, bass traps, diffusers, and hybrid products.