Think nearfield.
That's a good strategy Charlie. It improves the S/N ratio by letting you turn down the volume as you get closer to the speakers, then the lower volume inthe room reduces the reflection noise while the signal strength remains the same in your ears. Most speakers have a minimum distance from the listener, so that is the limit to how close you can get, and speakers do sound different with distance, but the improvement in S/N is worth adjusting to the different tone or correcting the tone electronically.
How do you control the bass?
Werd, sorry I didn't see your post until Charlie bumped it.
You can't control bass. It is a wild evil force of nature. It makes little children and grown audiophiles cry.
Do you keep the bass inside the soundstage by preventing it (with Bass traps) from moving around the room. Confining it between the speakers.
Can't confine it, but you can do a couple things that seem like confining it.
Use dipole speakers to cancel bass going to the sides and above of the speaker. This reduces room modes dramatically, but bass slam can suffer unless other techniques are used to compensate.
Using very thick bass traps on the walls with full coverage would absorb reflections and stop the modes from forming. Anechoic chamber. Modes are just reflections that combine together to make additive peaks and subtractive nulls. No reflections = no modes, no peaks, no nulls, no acoustic problem, no wife, no money and no space left for gear.
Actually I love the concept of anechoic listening. I have done a couple experiments with it and love listening without reflections. But people recoil at the idea of it without ever trying it, similar to making sausage vs eating it, or monetary deflation. It must be bad cuz everyone says so, right?
It's not a simple project to make a practical non-reflective space big enough, but it's possible. No reflection at all, perfect tone, perfect FR, perfect recorded ambience. Very low SPL because no noise to overcome. Detail off the charts. Extreme dynamic range. Midfi gear will make you cry, but you will hear every flaw magnified.
OK back to reality...
Or is it better to let it flow and just trap the nulls and spikes in your room?
This is what people do.
"Many men have tried."
"They've tried and failed?"
"They've tried and died."
To make efficient use of the money and to get effective results you have to forget the "broadband" mantra and think about the physics.
Absorption attenuates sound by converting air molecule velocity into heat. Air must be moving for attenuation to occur. Loudness is sound pressure, not velocity. Putting traps where the bass is loudest is ineffective. Max velocity occurs in the sound wave where pressure crosses zero, so quietness is velocity. Put traps where the freq is quietest and the traps will convert that freq to heat, and any other freqs with velocity at that spot.
What percentage of all corner locations is low SPL at the offending freq? Not much, so why treat all of it? You don't need to trap broadband bass, you need to stop only the modal frequencies that disturb your music enjoyment.
1. Identify the freqs you want to cure.
2. Find the places in the room where those freqs are quietest.
3. Put thick powerful concentrated absorption only there.
4. One dose will not kill a mode, take advantage of every opportunity you can find for each mode.
5. It is a big project, give it time, and enjoy the learning, enjoy the fight, feel the testosterone.
6. Defend your new nest from the soul snatchers.
