[Jmitchell3]

Hello! Someone recently pointed out that i should treat the recessed area in my living room that serves as the front wall for my music /ht system. Anyone have any ideas? Diffusors or absorbers, etc? I nave exactly zero experience in room treatments! 

Thank you!

[JLM]

Why exactly was that suggestion made?  Gotta define the problem in order to solve it. 

For best imaging, loose the bulky cabinet, TV, and gear in that order.  Have found that space filling/reflective surfaces between the main speakers destroys imaging.  Used to run with a small rack (20" x 20" x 15") but moving down to very small gear on a single spiked board helped immensely.  Images can't occupy the same space as physical objects.  Reflective surfaces impede the sound stage from extending beyond, the more reflective (harder) the worse the effect.  Generally speaking absorption is easier to accomplish than diffusion.  They each produce different effects.  Excessive absorption can deaden the room.  Suggest calling GIK for specific advice.

Most recommend front wall treatment to be absorbent.  I have ten GIK 244 panels (six of them bought back when they called "full range", four recently purchased with sub 80 Hz option).  The first six are on front (4) and back (2) walls.  The last four are on side walls.  Also have three tall randomly filled bookcases on side walls to act as "informal" diffusors.  My dedicated well insulated audio room is 8ft x 13ft x 21ft (Fibonacci ratios), setup is an 80 inch equilateral triangle with front firing speakers 3ft from side walls and 5ft from front wall.  Use three subs carefully located near corners to reduce inevitable in-room peaks/dips.  Also use Dirac Live as a final touch (<500 Hz).

Deep bass issues can best be solved by proper room shape and distributed bass sourcing (solving physical problems with physical means as suggested by Earl Geddes).  Recommend reading Floyd Toole's "Sound Reproduction" 3rd edition to learn about room acoustics.  It's the seminal work for lay people.  Realize that diffusion works based on the size of sound waves, so only effective down to 1,100 Hz (with 7" deep diffusers).  The best design is made up of quadratically differed depth squares made of acoustically opaque material.  GIK uses the best absorbing material (that covers as wide of a frequency range as possible), Owens Corning 703 high density fiberglass.  GIK panels come in various colors or can be custom ordered with whatever artwork you'd like.

[toocool4]

Personally I prefer diffusors on front & rear walls and generally absorbers on sidewalls. Absorbers on sidewalls really help with imaging and sound staging.
I have GIK Alpha diffusors / absorbers on the front / back walls and corners, this works very well for me. I use some DIY absorbers on the sidewalls. I also have GIK art panel on the front wall too.

[Hipper]

Hello! Someone recently pointed out that i should treat the recessed area in my living room that serves as the front wall for my music /ht system. Anyone have any ideas? Diffusors or absorbers, etc? I nave exactly zero experience in room treatments! 

You need to read up on the subject of room treatment. A couple of good sources:

https://www.gikacoustics.com/articles/

https://realtraps.com/index.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTnituQu8ig&t=250s

It's mostly and initially about controlling bass with reflections of the higher frequencies dealt with afterwords.

What JLM says is correct regarding the gear on the front wall - it can reflect the higher frequencies so damaging the image. On the other hand, it may be that if you open the four doors at a small angle those sounds will be reflected away from your ears.

The image itself is a phantom image created in your head so it doesn't physically exist where you gear is. However, apart from reflections the fact that it is there may affect your brain's interpretation of the image. Not having the gear there also allows panels to be placed on that wall.

My gear is on the side wall which also reflects. I solved that by using panels on the outside of each speaker but if you have a big enough side wall that might not be an issue. It does require longer speaker cables though.

[richidoo]

The ideal front wall for stereo imaging is a plain flat wall, maybe with diffusion if you can do the whole surface.  The ideal front wall for clean bass is no wall at all. You have potential to achieve both, if your stars can align.

In your case, the TV nook is the main problem that I can see. Reflections coming out from the nook area will sound bad, tone trashed, imaging ruined. If you are used to and content listening this way then you are in for a treat (and deeper audio addiction,) if you fix it. The nook creates varying front wall depths, along with concave 90 degree corner seams and tricorners, several parallel walls of distances matching wavelengths in midbass and midrange (resonances.) Treating or getting rid of that nook is your best opportunity for improvement.

A traditional solution would be to apply absorption to all the surfaces inside the nook and the front facing wall surrounding the nook, using a fabric covering that your decorator likes. A more involved but potentially better looking and acoustically more effective approach would be to get rid of the nook altogether, with lumber framing and sheetrock, converting it into a flat wall with a built in TV that's flush with the wall and very small gap to the wall surrounding the TV. Add gear cabinet below if desired. Fill in the unused volume behind the new wall with pink insulation. Then after nook is gone, and if your decorator allows, you could go a step further and cover that entire new flat front wall with 2" thick amplitude diffusion panels like GIK's Alpha 2D-a. You can order custom sized panel(s) to cover the TV, to be removed for TV watching and reinstalled for music listening. The 2D amplitude diffusion really works great, it has a very obvious and beneficial effect. The trick is getting the decorator to buy into having fabric on the walls instead of paint, and then finding acoustically transparent fabric color that compliments the wall paint, or better yet, works with the decorator's "bold new vision." A big bold colored fabric wall can be a visually appealing accent wall if conceived as an artistic decor element from the beginning (rich bold orange fabric, or a geometric pattern of smaller colored or shaded panels, or a printed graphic on the fabric, etc.) 

You will lose some bass energy to those open doorways in the room's front corners, but the bass/midbass clarity will improve without the front corner reflections. But since the loss of bass here is caused by increased radiating space and not caused a reflection null you could compensate with EQ.
Rich