Last night while listening it dawned on me that "the room is an extension of the speaker". While this will seem obvious to most, to put it this simply explains a lot. How so?
Over the months and years of improving and tweaking, I at last found myself dealing with room acoustics, which found me experimenting with thick and tall pieces of rock wool type insulation. Without measurements from sensitive equipment I had to use...my ears (the horror!) Too much in this corner may improve the bass a bit, but at a cost of flattening the soundstage somewhat, but Spatials work backwards from box speakers as moving them towards the corner diminishes the bass--the quest for finding that happy medium or Goldilocks syndrome of too much or too little bass coming to fruition.
But, I have always been a fan of DIY Shakti Hallowgraphs, which are a triangular form of diffusors on stands, and according to my ears they work! It was not enough to place one behind each speaker, on lazy susans so I could toe them in or out depending on the recording. Experimenting on the walls, or right beside the walls I find that I get more room ambience--which means recording space ambience, by directing the reflected sound, hence opening up the soundstage a bit more to the extreme right and left.
All of this will seem obvious to the experienced listener, but for myself, the room now so more than ever, is an extension of the speaker!
