I'm with you Lon on both the large room and the treatments.  My resistance to treatments is mostly due to the complexity of my room and the total impracticality of having treatments in that space.  Maybe it's wishful thinking but I think the complexity of my room geometry negates the need for treatment to a large extent.  However, I'll never know.

Over the years I've experienced oddities in the acoustics of my house -- which is open and voluminous.  At times sound is crystal clear and amplified and at others it gets muffled and distorted.  This all depends on the location of the sound and the listener.  I'm not just referring to music but also spoken words.  I usually can tell by how many times I say, "What?" in a conversation that's not face to face.

Thanks for the replies gentlemen.

Archie, I too have a big room that presents problems and I thank my stars for the balance options I have as well as the fact that I use HR-1 speakers as I have a big open space that the stereo is in one half of and one speaker has a wall corner to reinforce it and the other has none, just as big an area next to it. I put a chair near it when I can (when I'm alone) and that really helps and the very nature of the upward omni-directional speaker and the directional ribbon speaker make this a very satisfying and real sounding presentation with a near perfect left to right balance that I can adjust several ways, usually by using the dual volume controls on the Taboo Mk IV with Anniversary mods. Luckily we don't encounter non-musical/TV playback issues in the room itself (other than the fact that my wife's hearing is not as good as mine, she occasionally has hilarious "mishearings" of what was said on TV when NOT playing the DVR through the stereo).

CA, yes, I spent a decade or so with the "small room big sound" effort going and finally finalized, and then my late first wife finally consented to (and enjoyed) the stereo in the living room/dining room area in our Austin home, and I got to enjoy it there an additional five plus years after her passing. I was so happy to have the larger room and haven't relished going back to small room/near field listening since. In part I was happy because that was another audio journey to explore--I do confess that my love of music and wanting to get "deep inside" (after giving up performing in bands and with others my goal was to make reproduced music "come alive") has led to me constantly seeking tiny improvements in stereo presentation. If I were allowed "room treatment' beyond foam cell blinds and rugs I would go nuts with that!

Two years ago and a bit I was "convinced" to move my main system into what is not a small room exactly but a medium much more rectangular room. Another chance to explore setup and changes and I get very good sound there. But I still would rather have my main system back in the large room area--I had it there when I first got the SE84UFO Monoblocks with mods, my P10, and my first ZROCK2 and man the sound! I do really enjoy the sound of this system with the PPP and the Taboo Mk IV with mods, etc. but the main system is another level altogether. Maybe someday. . . we'll see. . . unlikely. I will keep improving the sound as I can in the medium room.

Life is so good with Decware products! I was recently thinking of how my sound was twenty plus years ago. Decware's components have evolved, as has my knowledge of how to eek out of them their character and finesse and I have sound that I never really dreamed I would have. . .every day.

My experience as well. We're so lucky to have the fruits of Steve's (and in my case Bob's) explorations into the mechanics of sound reproduction.