Popcorn Ceiling vs Smooth

I have a dropped down, acoustic, deep fissured ceiling, in my listening room. Adds to the great sound that I can get from the room. The floor is carpeted, so the room in itself is really quite 'dead', which was desired. Unlike popcorn ceilings, mine is deep fissured so it traps much more of the sound. So my recommendation is dump the popcorn, install a dropped ceiling like mine. You will be happy. With a dropped down ceiling, mine is 2x2 grid, there are endless acoustic 'drop ins', that can be added to further control the resonance you get from the ceiling.

I noticed a difference (more "ring") when popcorn was replaced with light orange peel texture in our front room.

Fighting and killing all of echo may defeat the naturality of the sound. And amount of echo should be present so to feel an atmosphere of a real performance hall and naturality of every instrument and voice you're hearing.
Some studios don't kill echo completely for that purpose.
Sound with no echo is lifeless IMHO.

If you're talking about large recording rooms where a classical performer or group might be recorded live then that makes sense.
But every standard recording studio I can recall being in was dead as can be.

But every standard recording studio I can recall being in was dead as can be.

Agree, but one can choose studio with partially defeated echo realizing that there won't be possibilities of successful overdub or isolated recording of each instrument. Whole band shold start from AtoZ with no interruptions or failures of either electronics or musician's fingers just like on the live concert. It works super great for small jazz band with good recording equipment.

For home entertainment I don't see neccessity of defeating echo heavily. It's much easier achieved via closed back 2
headphones.