So what is the problem? Room acoustics. Look at this shot:
This was a giant room. Probably 4 to 5 times larger than any of the normal hotel suites/rooms that others had. This helps a lot in lowering bass mode frequencies. Mistake here was to put the speakers widthwise. That forced the listening row to be way too close to these giant speakers. And they were too far apart to integrate as one system.
I tried sitting in the second row and as with all the other rooms, sans one, the sound was even worse there.
Mind you, these are dynamic speakers and they played them loud to show off. But even there, I thought they were too loud even for someone who likes it loud like me.
And what is the deal with the bass traps? They should go in corners, not between speakers. Yes, they kind of work there too but the problem is that in this room the ceiling is a commercial drop ceiling. That acts as an absorber. The floor is carpet so that is another absorber. Then back wall is a curtain so that is an absorber. Then adding these other tubes everywhere just adds to the feeling of a dead room (yes, Art says these are diffusers at higher frequencies but I am not sure).
If the room was rotated 90 degrees, and measurements made to find the modes and place the seats to avoid most of them, and farther away from speakers, it would have made a big difference. As it is, many rooms beat it in sound fidelity including Doshi room which played the identical tape sample they had, in a tiny room.