Does the first reflection point actually matter??

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. 

«Reflections within listening rooms are real and numerous. Some would argue that they all are problems to be eliminated. Others take a more philosophical view that they just provide information about the room, and the brain can figure it out. I’m somewhere in the middle, but leaning towards the latter. The science that has been done so far seems to be on my side.»

These words are from Dr, Floyd Toole one of the foremost acoustician in the world in an article written 1 year ago....

https://www.audioholics.com/room-acoustics/room-reflections-human-adaptation

Secondary reflections plays an active POSITIVE part in a small room and contrary to some sayings not a necessarily negative one at all if we learn  how to use them.... Then the Active acoustical controls with a grid of resonators of different kind can play an important role in the way we use the complex interplay between direct sound and reflections.... Passive materials treatment is not enough contrary of what is said in most audio thread..... This is my last discovery....



My conclusion after my set set of experiments in the last 2 years, with my own devices, is that audio thread instead of being forums about the marketing of new designed electronic components should rather be for more than half of their content about acoustic and it will be better for this hobby....

No speakers can speak itself out of any room and without a room, and more than that, each speakers speak different languages in different rooms...

Most peoples cannot afford dedicated room, and dont want to "work" after paying big money for their basic electronic components, that is the crux of the problem for audio forums...But this dont erase the truth in audio:

Dont upgrade anything before embedding everything right...

Acoustical embedding is the most impactful one, especially if the other two has been taken care of....Acoustical active embeddings can transform most good audio system to a complete new level....


:)

I will add that owning a small room can be a very good thing because it is more easy to use secondary reflections with a usable time synchronisation to work with...

Near listening dont eliminate the problem of the room at all contrary to a common misunderstanding...

Near listening is affected by the room presence or absence of controls almost at the same extent that regular listening position, only a bit less, then the false idea that near listening free the listener of the acoustical impact of the room comes from that erroneous impression...I speak here about small room where device like resonators can be very useful to controls sound....Big musical hall are another problem completely...

« Refracted waves all the way down are good and reverberations delicious»- Bat proverb

«My body hear better when i make love»-Groucho Marx

« Planets also hear better in that case, it is because of others body proximity brother»-Harpo Marx

I own gradient 1.3 speakers  the speaker is all about the first reflective point , they don’t look like any other speaker . The inner ear site explains them. I have them in my system for 25 years ,