Help on next steps: New sub, second sub, room treatment or patience?

[csepulv]

I am piecing together a new family room (repurposing old room) and I am using the opportunity to improve my music listening experience. The room is mixed use: home theater, music listening and home office.

I've spent countless hours reading posts on ASR. While the information is incredible, there is a lot of it now swirling in my head. As I consider my room, my graphs and my goals, I am a little confused as how to proceed. In my ignorance, I might be missing measurements that are obvious to others or I might be making the wrong conclusions. I realize I will be asking questions that have been already discussed numerous times before. But, as noted, I struggle to apply my tidbits of knowledge to my situation.

Equipment
-Denon 3808ci AVR
-Raspberry PI w/ Volumio => miniDSP DDRC-24, with Dirac Live applied (for music listening)
-Paradigm Premier 800f (towers)
-single Paradigm Cinema sub (from older setup) crossover at 80hz

The miniDSP outputs to analog inputs on the AVR, playing in pure / passthrough.

I placed the sub based on moving the sub and take measurements, looking for flatest curve and minimal nulls

Room
My room is oddly shaped.

I am open to either orientation, if one is obviously better (graphs below)

The room is fully carpeted and there is a sectional sofa, as noted. (A desk and some back wall bookshelves are in the room as well, though only noted in the diagram). The side right wall (in diagram) is mostly large windows - 20', 18" from floor to about 20" from ceiling. 9ft ceilings.

Measurements
Long Wall Configuration
Sweep (1/6 smoothing)

MMM/RTA (no smoothing)

Side Wall configuration
Sweep (1/6 smoothing)

MMM/RTA (no smoothing)

Waterfalls

Main Questions
-is one room orientation better than another? Why?
-Should I get a different subwoofer? Second Subwoofer? Which would you prioritize?
-how effective might room treatments be?
-should I be patient?

Overall, I am happy with the sound, but I am comparing it to previous setup of Paradigm Cinema 5.1, with whatever room correction my dated Denon AVR Audyssey provided. So I am am not sure how much more I could be squeezing out of my system. I am willing to invest in new subs and other items, but I don't want to rush into anything.

When it comes to room treatments, I might be able to do some bass traps in some corners, but as the room is shared use, I can't put much treatment on the wall, particularly if they are deeper than 2-3".

Once I settle on room orientation, we will be adding some bookshelves.

Any suggestions? Other measurements I should make?

I appreciate any advice and especially appreciate the thought process behind such advice.

 

[Slayer]

New sub? - I think that depends on how well you actually like your current sub. Of course there is always bigger and or better subs out there.

Second sub? - Personally I thing running a second sub is generally beneficial. Not only will it help to get rid of room nulls, it will add in your spl, taking less effort that is usually put on one sub.

Patience - Patience when it comes to buying audio gear is never a bad idea in my opinion. New products are always coming up, sales always popping up, taking the time as you are doing now by more research. Then sometimes with enough patience, some folks find out they are in the end satisfied with what they have at the moment.

But yes, usually if we try hard enough, we can always find something that's just a wee bit better. Whether or not it's worth it or not is up to you. Just spend some time as you are doing now by researching and asking as many questions as you think you need to. In the end you will make the right decision, well your wallet hopes you do anyways.

 

[csepulv]

New sub? - I think that depends on how well you actually like your current sub. Of course there is always bigger and or better subs out there.

Second sub? - Personally I thing running a second sub is generally beneficial. Not only will it help to get rid of room nulls, it will add in your spl, taking less effort that is usually put on one sub.

Patience - Patience when it comes to buying audio gear is never a bad idea in my opinion. New products are always coming up, sales always popping up, taking the time as you are doing now by more research. Then sometimes with enough patience, some folks find out they are in the end satisfied with what they have at the moment.

But yes, usually if we try hard enough, we can always find something that's just a wee bit better. Whether or not it's worth it or not is up to you. Just spend some time as you are doing now by researching and asking as many questions as you think you need to. In the end you will make the right decision, well your wallet hopes you do anyways.

Thanks for your comments.

On the sub question, I am not sure how much I like the Paradigm Cinema. It doesn't go that low, but it is helping fill in nulls that would be present without it. On a second sub, I wonder if it would be better to get two new subs. (I like the footprint and reputation of the Rythmik L12.)

But of course that the temptation in all this, i.e. not just buy one but buy two.

Any other thoughts on my overall situation? I look at my graphs and I think overall things look okay. There are some nulls to work through, but I don't know if my impression is right nor what else I might be missing.