Front or Back wall diffusers

Andy @aquint : gorgeous room! Thanks for sharing and chiming in

Also, about 6 years ago, when drawing the original plans for the house of stereo, GIK told me that the front wall should be addressed last if at all. Just saying.

@baylinor GIK told me the same thing as it's the furthest reflection point for anything but bass. And I agree that audiophiles like to look at diffusion on front wall, especially Gotham diffusers.

However, the real disconnect is that GIK is pro audio and we are hi-fi. Diffusion on front wall will add depth and space to the sound stage...a nice hi-fi trick. Pro audio does not care about that. They want flat frequency response and to fight SBIR...so they will build their speakers into the wall or put them right up against the wall in a small mixing room.  

The main difficulty with setting up diffuse panels are you do not want them too close to your listening position. Six feet away is the minimum and at least eight feet away is the preferred. 

@axo0oxa 6-8 feet away for diffusion? To diffuse lower midrange absolutely yes...and you would need a well depth of like 6-10 inches as well. 

Most of us don't have that deep of wells or really deep poly diffusers that can diffuse lower midrange frequencies. Kind of the same challenge as "trapping bass" below 80hz...the panels have to be impractically thick. 

So most of us aren't diffusing lower-mids to begin with, even if we sit far enough way.

Scatter plates don't really scatter below the upper mid-range/lower treble but they still have benefit...they preserve higher frequencies by not allowing them to be absorbed into the foam or insulation that they are attached to. Scatter plates are a very smart way to prevent a dead room and still get low end absorption. 

A lot of us have quadratic diffusers and skyline diffusers and maybe some cylinders that are 4-7 inches deep. Again not going to do much diffusing in the lower midrange but still they are covering quite a bit of midrange...much more than scatter plates and they still diffuse, even if you're 5 feet away from them...though maybe you won't get diffusion at their lower limit if you are sitting too close.