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[David A]

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As @IanG-UK says, acoustic foam has a big impact on the way the room sounds. As an example; I posted here a while ago that my new living room sounded fantastic with the Key LS50W in it before the plaster board went up. It was just all fibre glass insulation all around. Now the plaster board is in but the room still empty, there's a 2.15 second echo in the room when I open the window latch. I tested it the other day because I was surprised by that echo. I knew it was bad but then I opened that latch and the sound just hung around I just had to time it. I tried three times and they all came out around the 2.15 second mark. Just think about that; a sound comes from your speaker and will mix with the next 2.15 seconds of music coming from that same speaker, which then mixes with the next 2.15 seconds...you get the idea. It's a mess that no room correction or tone controls will ever be able to fix.

Foam can have a big impact but so can many things and a lot of the foam around isn't the best, especially if it isn't dense enough and/or it's not thick enough because then it tends to absorb at higher frequencies only and that won't help you much.

2.15 seconds is quite a long reverberation time so I suspect your room is actually a fair size, larger than average. You said it's currently bare. That reverberation time will drop when you get furniture in and some rugs or carpet on the floor. The reverberation will be longest at bass frequencies so if it's still too long after you furnish the room and put some curtains up, you should consider bass traps of some sort. As well as "proper" acoustic bass traps you might be surprised at what you can achieve with some furniture choices. For example, a sofa with thick, dense foam cushions can have quite a beneficial effect on mid to upper bass frequencies so choosing seating with thick foam cushions and fabric rather than leather upholstery is a good choice with the advantage that it doesn't look like acoustic treatments.

With a reverberation time as long as you're reporting I'd be looking at absorption which extends well into the bass frequencies and provided you avoid absorptive materials/products which have surfaces/coverings which are reflective at high frequencies you'll also get some high frequency absorption too. With any absorption you want to pick options which are effective over as broad a frequency band as possible otherwise you run the risk of too much absorption in the high frequencies which tends to make the sound too dead. You're in northern NSW so one thing you can do to get a fair bit of absorption for free, at least for a lot of the year, is simply to have some windows and doors into the room left open when you're listening. Absorption is measured in Sabins and 1 Sabin is equivalent to the sound lost from the room through a 1 square foot opening to the outside.

There are those who swear by diffusion rather than absorption but diffusion keeps the sound reflecting around the room and won't reduce the reverberation time significantly. With the reverberation time you're reporting you're going to need absorption to reduce the reverberation time to a reasonable level and you could consider adding some diffusion then if you wish but absorption should be your starting point in order to reduce that 2.15 second reverberation considerably, probably down into the 0.2 to 0.5 second time depending on your musical tastes and personal preference. Go for a shorter reverberation time if you like vocal music or small instrumental groups and longer if you like symphonic music.

Where do you find these tone controls?

The right hand button of the 3 buttons below the volume control on the remote cycles through settings for balance, bass tone control, treble tone control, and SAM setting, You can set the hinge frequencies for both tone controls in the Configurator.