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Well it's only my approach but it seemed to start working for me when I got hold of some very flat speakers (monitors in my case) and positioned them close enough to me that the room effect lessens. At the same time trying to get them away from room perimeters. It's been a long journey for me though, lots of money spent, lots of fun regardless. I have accepted that speakers need to be away from the back wall or you need to reduce the bass, wall and corner you need 6db reduction in the bass.
So basically try and create a triangle where your listening position is roughly as far away from the speakers as the speakers are from each other and get them away from the walls, then you are hearing the speakers less than the room. In my room there's one point where it's pretty flat, in some corners the bass is 6db or more higher, really noticeably booming.
I agree with you and your friend that DSP could work in this system though. I do use it myself depending on the speakers and positioning, its also very useful if you are running a sub.
Airhead-
On a simple level you do understand the massive glass cupboard in the corner of the room might function as a very unusual resonator.
Sadly I'll be shown the door before the glass cupboard is. It was made for a piece of woodwork, family heirloom from my GFs grandparents.
Your advice, as always, is really appreciated. At the moment I have less bass than i expect in quite a specific range, probably around -3db in the 100-150Hz range if my ears are functioning. The drop was wider before the new amp (perhaps -6db at 100-300Hz) but it's still definitely there. I don't hear much in the way of bass boom in listening position , though I haven't bothered putting my head in the corners of the room. More importantly, if I move around the room I don't hear any meaningful change in the sound profile. This tells me it's less about the room mode and more to do with how the air is being driven, though I totally accept I'm making things harder for myself by having the speakers so close to the wall along the long edge of the room.
There's an alternative perspective on this which is the highs and upper mids are just a little too present due to the perky little cyrus amp, and I could treat this with HF sound absorbing panels, but I'm sceptical because even at higher volumes the speakers aren't delivering - the weight in the upper and mid bass range is just a little bit disengaged. And this is why I was looking at other amps yesterday, I was worried that it's the combination of amp and speakers that is the problem. I know I'm being picky but I have decent hearing and I know it's just not quite right yet.
Tomorrow I'm going to walk around with an (albeit uncalibrated) mic and run a pink noise generator to give me a better sense of what is going on in different areas on the room.
Edit: the other thing I'm going to do is temporarily move the speakers to the short wall, place them away from the wall and sit myself down one third of the room's length away from the opposite wall. If I get the sound I'm looking for I know it's at least possible from the set up without spending any money on further equipment (which is my goal).
Some good news, GF hasn't noticed the extra black box on the shelf. Win!
cheers all again
freddo
When I installed the the audio system in my van (5channel, 4 way high-end components) I did something very similar with parametric eq profiles to tune and shape the sound at the pre-amp stage. Obviously you have to do this in a car as you can't shape the room in any meaningful way.
In all seriousness, it was recommended to me by someone with something upwards of a £50k hifi setup who used one to create an eq profile for his room because "the room is always an issue". Given that any set up is always going to involve trade-offs (I'm not going to install bass traps or put my speakers in the middle of the room) there's no reason that a custom (to that room) parametric eq profile shouldn't play a part in improving the sound arriving at my ears. If you read the audiophile reviews, literally everyone raves about this device: here, here, here, here...
Otherwise, what should I adjust? Sure, I can spend £hundreds on new feet for my speaker stands (sadly that's probably going to have to happen), or I can upgrade the speakers and still have problems (these speakers are plenty capable of the quality that normal ears like mine will fall in love with if I can get them to deliver ).