My wife decided I needed to clean out my listening room and dress it up a bit, getting rid of that frat-boy look and feel. So I called GIK and spoke to their knowledgeable staff to solidify the ideas that I had. I have Apogee Duetta Signature speakers. They are dipoles, if you are unfamiliar with them. And as such, my acoustic choices are going to be different than most of you that have cone based speakers. Mainly, I need diffusion on my front wall (behind the speakers) and absorption behind my sitting position. I also don't need first reflection point treatment, because these speakers don't project the way a traditional speaker does.
Anyway, I kept the diffusion panels I built some time ago using dowels of various sizes. Unconventional, but aesthetically pleasing and they work wonderfully, if mostly in a horizontal manner. I added the felt and wood panels across the front wall and purchased a central focus diffuser from GIK. I call him Q-Bert
I also have some small circular corner absorber tubes I placed in the corners of that front wall. They probably don't really act as bass absorbers but they do have a coated side facing out and can help diffuse any high frequencies hitting those corners while doing a bit of something for any standing bass notes. I really can't fit 2' round bass traps there and this seems to be working just fine, which probably has something to do with my subwoofer positioning pulled out of the corners and placed next to the speakers. This results in a quicker sound and much less "boom".
My fat GIK absorption panels I recovered to match my couch and hung them on the back wall behind my sitting position. I covered as much of the wall as I can there. The one open doorway is to a closet where I store my media and the other is to a bathroom. Not much I can do there and yes, it does sound better with those doors open rather than closed. Maybe those rooms act as bass traps, I don't know.
Anyway, here's the results, Enjoy.
