Does the first reflection point actually matter??

Yes Dennis Foley is someone that understands room acoustics and how to treat a room.

I never found treating first reflection points to make any difference. Then again with my box speakers I toed them in 45 degrees per the manufacturers recommendation. FWIW, in my experience treating the ceiling and upper room corners made the biggest difference.

With my Analysis Audio, Quad 57, and Acoustat Model 2s I made some very simple 24 x 48 panels with thin foam and placed them on the back wall. They don't need to absorb much, just upper frequencies and they do the job just fine.

@jrwaudio, if your couch is up against a wall have you tried an absorption panel on the wall behind the couch. I found it helpful when my couch had to be in the same position.

@tuberollin


You are clearly wrong .... :)  I'm joking, making fun of so many people here who can't see past their agenda.  Your experiment seems to be exactly the kind of thing I'm asking.

Seriously though, what speakers are you using?? and exactly how do you feel the difference is?? 

In my experiences the closer it is to the source and the more reflective it is, the more it matters. It adds a bit on non specificity or for lack of a better word phase blurr ( like an out of phase tweeter) 

The most important part is getting to critical mass in absorption, and adding diffusion in the right areas. The laser-line, first reflection points, in my mind, have never born fruit.

I think you are right...

A room is so complex acoustically that it takes our ears to make it beautifully musical not only equations...First point reflections and other measurements make sense in a completely acoustically dedicated engineered ideal room...In normal irregularly and non ideally shaped room with furniture and non dedicated walls, with varied content materials being books, cd or whatever, it takes more than passive materials treatment of first reflection point by the book... :)

A passive room treatment with some balance between absorption and diffusion will do but cannot resolve all the room/speakers topology/location and content problems without speaking about the specificity of each audio system....

I was happy when i begin to create in my dedicated room non electronical ACTIVE room controls with interlinked active and passive resonators of different type all connected to 10 cheap Schumann generators grid...

Imaging, dynamic, soundstage, all is very good now, and a separation of the musical image from the speakers is possible ....

What most people dont realize is that nearfield listening is affected very much by the room acoustic...It is a myth to say that with near listening we are free from the room acoustic...But we cannot know what is missing if we have never experience it in the first place...

I know i listen near field (3feet) and in a more regular position (8 feet) and the sound is so good in my 2 positions that i dont prefer one to another.... Complete different experience with one thing in common : an encompassing soundstage (near listening) or a soundstage free from the speakers location (regular listening) in the 2 cases the sound dont come from the speakers...

And it is a myth to think that tonal accuracy can be separated complety from imaging...This 2 different qualities are ALWAYS related to one another through the acoutical performance of the room...

All my devices and materials are homemade and are very low costs by the way.....i incrementally add something one day after the other for the passive room treatment...Same thing for the more complex creation of the active controls....

Being audiophile is only remembering his listening history  and using it like a tool....

Mahgister,
Please make case for how front ported bookshelf speakers are impacted by room acoustics while listening to them in the near field? 3-4 feet. I don't think my ears are that good. Joe