I have often fretted about the various ways to treat a room,especially in between the speakers. There are several methods such as live end dead end, mass diffussion and absorption, adding mass (double drywall, concrete) to mitigate bass anomalies and trap sound better in the room, skyline diffusers (ceiling mount city looking diffusers), and on and on, to include the golden rule.
What has worked for me and for my own listening tastes is the following.
1. No equipment between speakers unless amps on the floor. This prevents erratic stereo information placement which could be caused by towers and racks sitting in between speakers causing a form of diffussion and dispersion of sound relevant to the stereo signal.
2. Yes, mass in ceilings and walls, adds more to the containment of bass and sound leaving the room and prevents room modes from vibrating walls at certain frequencies when playing music loud. The resonances of walls and floors that occur why music plays loud is normally associated to lack of mass. Caveat here is to add some form of absorbers, and spikes to mitigate physical and airborne disturbances due to pressurization of these modes on the floors and walls.
3. Using a combination of side wall absorption and diffussion, starting from directly on the side of speakers to the listening chair position.
4. On back wall behind listening position sparingly use diffusion. Perhaps between the top if couch or chair and ceiling, about 3-4 feet wide cube.
5. Corner bass traps, all corners.
6. Wall behind speakers, use dry stack stone or similar type with same characteristic patterns as dry stack stone. This adds a natural element of diffusion to the whole room. If needed, add spot placed absorbers in center. This is probably a page out of the live end dead end book.
7. Lastly, if using a sub, for music, use a room compensation EQ such as the Velodyne SMS1 sub EQ or equivalent to tame bass modes.
This seems to work for me the best.
Good luck.
Audioquest4life
What has worked for me and for my own listening tastes is the following.
1. No equipment between speakers unless amps on the floor. This prevents erratic stereo information placement which could be caused by towers and racks sitting in between speakers causing a form of diffussion and dispersion of sound relevant to the stereo signal.
2. Yes, mass in ceilings and walls, adds more to the containment of bass and sound leaving the room and prevents room modes from vibrating walls at certain frequencies when playing music loud. The resonances of walls and floors that occur why music plays loud is normally associated to lack of mass. Caveat here is to add some form of absorbers, and spikes to mitigate physical and airborne disturbances due to pressurization of these modes on the floors and walls.
3. Using a combination of side wall absorption and diffussion, starting from directly on the side of speakers to the listening chair position.
4. On back wall behind listening position sparingly use diffusion. Perhaps between the top if couch or chair and ceiling, about 3-4 feet wide cube.
5. Corner bass traps, all corners.
6. Wall behind speakers, use dry stack stone or similar type with same characteristic patterns as dry stack stone. This adds a natural element of diffusion to the whole room. If needed, add spot placed absorbers in center. This is probably a page out of the live end dead end book.
7. Lastly, if using a sub, for music, use a room compensation EQ such as the Velodyne SMS1 sub EQ or equivalent to tame bass modes.
This seems to work for me the best.
Good luck.
Audioquest4life