Does the first reflection point actually matter??

@gs5556 ....the Yarlung site was a fun listen with my diy Walsh, which already project a large soundstage by themselves. *S*

'Sonic holography' took me back to when I owned a Carver C9 Sonic Holography Generator back in the '80s'....It didn't work consistently with everything; whether this was due to the mixing, the format, my space and placement within....

....but, when it did....you almost felt you could grab the neck of the lead guitar...;)

1st reflection with omnis (or, for that matter, dipoles) becomes either a moot point or the 'sticky wicket'.  When 'all', or nearly, becomes reflection the room becomes part of your 'system'.  It can't be ignored.

My current space is so ghastly that all I can do is to reference the late Linkwitz and 'ignore the room'.  This consists of running 5.1; F & R, L & R, with a sub 'up front'.  Works best with 4 identical drivers in the corners....

I can add a slight delay to the back pair which can enhance, but it becomes 'selection dependent' and a PIA to do. *L*

But then I'm 'listening to the stuff' rather than 'listening to the music', which kinda defeats the goal of it all....and I'm pretty atypical in approach, anyway....

Best, J

Funny....Yarlung states their generator fits a 2U rack space.

Which is just about the size of the Carver units.....🤔

...and I've got room for 2 of them....;)

*Familiar opening music passage....*

"Space.....The Final Frontier....."

...some will say I'm 'spaced' enough already....*LOL*

YES!!!!!

If I recall...Richard Hardesty’s white papers claimed that first reflections from side walls are the most harming due to confusing the brain as far as timing.
reflections off the floor result in excessive brightness and reflections off the ceiling don’t affect anything at all.
in my case, the room leans towards bare and lacks treatment but I don’t find the resulting sound overly bright. Nor do I have a problem with bass boom.  It did take quite a bit of experimentation with speaker placement to get here. 
Erik, here’s a test: if you could swivel deadening/diffusion panels at first reflection point so they are not parallel to the wall they are mounted on....say 15-20 degrees ( closest side to speaker 4” off the wall and side closest to listener touching the wall) this should throw the reflection to the back of the room, away from normal listening positions in the middle of the room, would this mimic the openness of a staged hall? Sucking the sound out and around?

@jacksky, your summary of the relative importance of the various surfaces that may provide early reflections is dead on, as is your recommendation regarding angling side wall first reflection treatments.  If you look at my post above, that is exactly the approach I used in my room.  The difference is that I used a solid oak 5' tall fully loaded CD rack instead of an acoustic panel or diffusor.  The side of the rack closest to the speaker is about 8" wide, and that side is spaced about 3" away from the wall.  The front edge of the rack is located a few inches behind the center of the 1st reflection point.  Some of the first reflection is directed behind the CD rack, some of it is reflected back to the front of the room, and some of it has its reflection trajectory changed so that it no longer is aimed at the main listening position.  I figure that wavelengths longer than 1500 Hz are probably impacted by this arrangement.  I have an identical CD rack located in the same position on the right and left walls.  These racks are much more effective than full range GIK monster or soffit traps for this purpose.   My room is 14' wide, so dealing with FRP from the side walls is imperative.  This gives superb imaging in my room.  Great depth and width, great center fill, nice life size vocal and instrumental size.  Best imaging by far I have ever heard in a narrow room.