Markus - here is my HT layout:
I do appreciat people sharing their experiences, that is how a community learns.
There is a balance to treatments vs the room space aestics, I did understand why you stated "turning the bass traps", however that won't work in my space due to physical interfence with the 2nd row seats.
I'm not trying to dial in any 1 seat location, rather compromise and make all the seats "decent", that's what a HT is for.
If a listening room, then there would be different goals/objectives.
I consider the 2nd row over the 1st row for primary seating, due to the 2nd row has HT seats while the 1st row is still my old getto-looking couch....seems something in the home always gets priority for $k over getting a 1st row HT seat. Still, I'm taking care of 1st row seating acoustics also.
Here are graphs of my IB sub, no EQ, with the treatments as show earlier here:
(fwiw, my 2nd seat riser is also a broadband bass trap as well)
2nd row all 4 seat positions
1st row all 3 seat positions
Overall I'm impressed by how they have helped the room bass acoustics.
fwiw, I've read "Master Handbook of Acoustics" by F. Alton Everest 2 years ago and quite a lot of other articles on acoustics.
However, reading theory is 1 thing, and then putting it into action, making treatments, connecting the dots, having the "light" go on when theory and reality come together.
That's the fun part of this hobby, the DIY thing and also grasp of the science behind it.
(I have a MSME, so math is very easy for me. At times, I wish some of the equations presented in the "Master Handbook of Acoustics" had their derivation available (besides footnotes), nothing like understanding equations by grasping their derivation. That would be something a future iPad verson having would be worthwhile to me, dynamic link to footnotes)
My friends and family think I'm a geek, but they also like me explaining the "What's/How's/Why's" of stuff.
However, I do have to preface to them what I leaned is via reading books/OJT/forums/etc, that I'm NOT certified in acoustics so I'm just an amatuer in that regard.