Help with room treatment?

Contact GIK acoustics. You can upload everything to them and they'll give you the best professional advice I know of, plus really affordable products.


https://www.gikacoustics.com/

I had a similar experience. Four walls in a dedicated room, empty except for the system, you get all the normal reflections only much more dramatically because of the flat surfaces. None of the usual clutter to break them up.

Watch yourself here. Lotta guys have this unstoppable reflex when giving advice. It goes like this: SPEND MONEY! BUY! PAY!

I’m sure you will see it. If you haven’t already. Like I said its a reflex. No thought. No understanding. No consideration. Reflex. Plain, dumb, mindless reflex.

Simple, easy and FREE test to see if I’m on the right track: clap. Stand different places. Clap. Listen. If the room is really empty and untreated you will hear a sound called flutter echo. Its the sound of the clap as it bounces from side to side and from one end to the other. Related to this, if you play a CD with test tones and move around you will notice places where the tone is really loud, others where it drops way off. Sometimes depending on the frequency these can be anywhere from a few inches to a few feet apart.

Okay so that’s your assignment. Do both if you can but clap matters more than test tone. Get back to me when we know we’re on the same page. Or open your wallet. But I can get you sounding really, really good in a few hours and for like $100, if that. So your call.

Sound absorption panels at reflexion points, behind speakers and behind listening chair will help. Also bass traps in corners behind speakers. Check out ATS Acoustics for DIY products. I made 2x4' panels from their Roxul Rockboard 2", burlap fabric, and 1x3" pine in 6' lengths for frame with cardboard backing.  Six panels could be made very inexpensively. They also have material for building bass traps. I am not affiliated with ATS, just happy customer. 

Thank you! I have 2 fairly good bass traps (foam) in the corners behind speakers, 2/3 up the wall.
Grabbing 20 to 30 1'x1' acoustic panels this week and will see the improvement they make.
Millercarbon I will do that and let you know. Thank you.
Can anyone tell me how to attach pictures to this thread for some better help? 
It's possible my speakers are also misplaced.

For speaker placement- 

First big choice is do they go L/R across the long wall, or the short wall? Room layout might dictate one or the other and if so no worries. But if not then the only way to know is to try.

Next big choice is speakers and listening chair, how far or close to the wall? Several feet away from side and back walls is great for imaging but you will notice distinctly less bass. Sitting back near a wall you will get a lot more bass, but not as good imaging. No right answer, whatever you like is best.

But think about, will you be using just the two speakers? Or adding four subs in a proper distributed bass array? If DBA you can forget about bass for now and focus on imaging. 

Doing this part I find it easier to remove any speaker spikes and not fuss much over placement, toe-in, etc. The goal is just to find where you get the smoothest most even bass response.

Now hopefully you got these OC703 panels https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BJMX5P0/ref=sspa_dk_detail_0?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B00BJMX5P0&pd_rd_w=i...
OC703 is real easy to work with except it does make this fine irritating fiberglass dust. Cut it with a razor blade or sheet rock knife, outdoors or in a shop, wearing latex gloves and a mask. Its not that bad but you will be a lot happier if you do it this way.

Pick up a box of stick pins, not thumb tacks, little pins about an inch long. Cut two panels about 12x12. Place them on the side walls to catch the first side reflection off each speaker. Alternatively you could lean one panel against the wall, with another above it held with pins. This is kind of overkill but you don't cut anything. Again there's no right or wrong. The only way to go wrong is just start doing stuff other people recommend without trying to find out if it actually works! lol!

This is all an iterative process. Now go back and tweak the speakers. Using a tape measure set them up to be exactly equidistant from your listening position. Then using a laser level, framing square, or creative measuring point them precisely the same amount of toe-in. Listen for imaging. Experiment with toe-in. This fine tunes both frequency response and imaging. More toe-in, more precise imaging. More toe-out, wider more spacious but also more diffuse presentation. No right answer. Experiment. Only way to know.

Not easy. Lotta work. Do all this and if you are not stunned then I will be. Because it totally works.

And we are just getting started.