Looking for software to help with speaker response/placement

Oh no, it’s the old “L shaped “ listening room problem.  Yes, you are hearing correctly.  The two speakers play as different as night and day.  The speaker that unloads into an open space produces week and fluffy bass.  The one near the other corner is tight and punchy.   The first thing rule in setting up listening rooms is to do everything humanly possible to get both speakers to have the same acoustic backpressure, symmetry around the speakers.  .
 
If at all possible, rotate your listening footprint so that it lines up on the diagonal that runs out from the hard corner.  The openness of your space will be behind you and the two speakers are playing out of the hard corner where they both have the same acoustic load.  
You’ll have your back up against the outside corner of the L and the speakers will be set against the inside corner of the L.  There will be two legs to the L, one goes behind to your left and the other goes to your behind to your right.    
 
I know, most people proclaim, “it can’t be done”.  Nothing can be moved.  So then you get to build a wall to the outside of the soft speaker so both speakers can feel the same back pressure.  No wall, no way?  Then move a large book case up where the wall could have been located.  Bass pressure doesn’t care what it is, just what it feels like. 
 
For testing your room and making adjustments, how about getting Stereophile test CD 2 and play track 19.  Listen over headphones first.  That is what you are hoping to hear in the room.  Now sit down and play it again in the room.  Now you know the seriousness of your problem, because you can hear your room stumble around instead of being a fast room.  This test is called MATT, Musical Articulation Test Tones. 
 
Go to  http://www.acousticsciences.com/matt.htm   and get a free download of the test, and a free training session about how it works and what listening rooms sound like, bare and with conditioning.  Also you’ll see how to figure the problem frequency using sound meter and stop watch.   You can record what you hear before you start doing acoustics or moving things around.  Then compare one setup with another to see if you can hear any improvements. 
 
What you’ll do is to compare the right to the left speaker.  Once you get used to listening to the test results, you’ll be able to know when you are making the right addition.  Bottom line, get symmetry into your wave launching platform. 
 
EQ?  Yes, you can EQ for this.   I’m not sure EQ is called for, try cutting power to the speaker in the hard corner, it is operating more efficiently that the one out in the open.  Do not over drive your open speaker trying to get it to be as loud as your hard corner speaker.  Cut the right speaker just enough so it is noticeable.  If you have a radioshack sound meter it should easy to set levels so they are balanced.  Then EQ if you have to but EQ as little as possible, almost nothing.  You know that EQ was thrown out of high end audio systems 25 years ago.  The ideal system has no EQ in it.  The Stereophile CD has tracks to help you balance your speakers.   Keep us posted on your adventure.
 
Art Noxon
Inventor of the TubeTrap and President of Acoustic Sciences Corp

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