Anyone have experience with ceiling treatments?

I have a moderately sized living room (14' wide x 22' long x 8'3"high) which doubles as my listening room. Over the past couple of years I have experimented with room treatments (echo busters, standing panels, heavy fabric, etc) with quite a bit of success, I think. The room treatments have had a lot to do with my two-channel audio system's surprising ability to throw an expansive soundstage with solid dimensional imaging while at the same time maintaining a high degree of tonal neutrality and playing totally "out of the box." I say surprising because I use horn speakers which are quite large (not huge) relative to the room.

The one thing that is sorely missing is image height - or soundstage height - to be more precise.

Nothing I've done has allowed me to capture or even come close to capturing the tremendous sense of volume and vertical space that I hear in systems (not necessarily better than mine, if as good) situated in rooms with high ceilings (12' and up). Put another way, the sound from my system in my room goes wide and pretty darn deep, but it just does not "rise" like the sound from other systems in high ceiling rooms. So it seems to me that one important aspect of recreating space has been lost to me.

For a while now I have been pondering whether I might be able to create artificial room height by treating my ceiling with sound absorbent or sound scattering materials. I even thought of buying some wall panels and installing them on my ceiling. But I have held back from doing so because it won't be easy, and so I should first find out if there's anyone out there who has actually done something like this? Will treating the ceiling work - that is - create a sense of room height that doesn't really exist? If so, how far does one have to go in treating the ceiling to get a noticeable result?

I know I can't, so I won't tear up and try to rebuild my ceiling (wife has much to say about what I do). I can't so I won't put up anything that looks really funky, like the foam skyline absorbers, because the room is still my living room after all. But I would be willing (if wife is also willing) to fasten some tastefully upholstered sound absorbent panels to my ceiling, or do something else "tasteful".

Any thoughts? Suggestions? Opinions?

Thanks,
Ron Yee "Oahuan"