Where to start with room acoustics

Don't fear that you have to buy lots of truly ugly hardware to properly dampen a room, either. My 14x24-30x8 with lots of openings still sounds quite properly "dead" because of wall-to-wall, stuffed sofa (L) and big chair (R), each topped with a propped pillow at the reflection points AT WILL if the recording demands it! Cross-beamed ceilings break up these reflections well, but the biggest factor is that I sit in a smallish 7.5' nearfield triangle 8' out from the front (back...you know) wall, creating a stage with phenomenal depth precision, despite the 7' Steinway back there. Learning to pull my listening chair forward one extra foot closer (it sits in a double-doorway to a 6x10 library behind it), was the only tweak that room-mode analysis provided. I was doing that anyway when I noticed that if I leaned forward a lot the stage blossomed perfectly. Starting with a smallish nearfield triangle in a deadened room certainly works, as the first-arrivals predominate, and you get a good feel for your speakers. You can then widen and lengthen the triangle as the room boundaries, aethetics and preference combine. Lots of folks start at the 1/3 points, too. Damping sidewalls just right obviously has a great effect, but the bigger surprise for me was the huge stage depth provided by having 8' behind the speaker plane for trios and quartets to inhabit. I often "see" pianists sitting AT MY PIANO, with the standup on one side, cymbals on the other. On great orchestral/choral stuff it seems the front bushes and yard are the stage! So don't feel you have to really sweat this out and use the WHOLE room's geometry at first, getting all the modes nulled and all surfaces treated. Start small, then spread out, tweaking as the triangle grows.... Worked for me. Have fun.