Does the first reflection point actually matter??

i get your point and i apologize if i was insisting...

What you say makes more sense in a vast room, in a small one we are captive of reflections and using it is the best way.... Erasing then partially is not the only and not the better way....Most people listen music in small room like me....And not in a ideal acoustically designed big room...

Anechoic chamber are unbearable by the way....And we cannot have an anechoic chamber impression from a normal room....We can record something in an anechoic chamber, not living in it..... In an anechoic chamber we are missing all information cues that comes from our normal room.... And what Toole or any acoustican know is that the brain NEEDS the recording cues of the lived recording original musical event and the cues from the room where the audio system plays to recreate the music on the best scale possible...The final information comes from the mixing by the brain of the cues coming from the direct waves and the reflected one in a room....There is no normal room who mimic an anechoic one.... It is a delusion or a metaphor to convey a peculiar opinion like: i taste my wine but i prefer that the wine dont come from any glass at all.... And this saying says all.... :)

My best to you....

I was only talking in relative terms, on a scale.

Anechoic room  <================> Drywall and concrete

If tool is in the middle I'm a little to the left of him.  The rest, the importance of reflections is important, too many overuse absorption and don't use enough diffusion.

That is all.

Erik

Ok i get your point.... Sometimes i am too swift to react.... But you dont get mine....About the difference between passive materials treatment and active controls one.... :)

The scale you just draw is about reflections only, not about the recreation of the music from the sound event by the brain  using the cues from the refective room and from the direct waves .... This scale is refering to passive controls methods not active one....There exist always 2 space in one, the recording space, and the actual room space.... The best method to recreate the event is using information not eliminating them only....That was my point.... Ok i will go silent....



My best to you....

Sorry, Toole, not tool.

Typing too fast. My apologies to the good gentleman.

The first sidewall reflection point matters in the design of a recording studio control room. Those I have been involved in used angles which direct the reflections away from the normal listening position.

In rooms where that’s not an option, apparently the first sidewall reflections still matter... or at least, what one does at these locations matters. @erik_squires on the subject:

"To my experience, as others here have noted, diffusion at the 1st reflection points are a better idea [than absorption]. They enhance imaging."

One significant difference between diffusion and absorption is, diffusion doesn’t significantly change the spectral balance of the reflected energy, while absorption does. And absorption keeps on having its effect on everything that hits it, not just those first reflections, for better or for worse. Both reduce the amount of early sidewall reflection energy which arrives at the listening location, but diffusion does so more benignly.

Early sidewall reflections have benefits. They DO increase the apparent source width... in other words, they can make the soundstage wider, but some image precision and soundstage depth is lost in the process, along with some clarity. So it’s a tradeoff. If not absorbed, that first sidewall reflection energy lives on to come back as later reflections which convey spaciousness (hall ambience) with no significant downside.

Earl Geddes on the subject of early reflections, which typically include the first sidewall reflections:

"The earlier and the greater in level the first room reflections are, the worse they are. This aspect of sound perception is controversial. Some believe that all reflections are good because they increase the listeners’ feeling of space – they increase the spaciousness of the sound. While it is certainly true that all reflections add to spaciousness, the very early ones (< 10 ms.) do so at the sake of imaging and coloration... the first reflections in small rooms must be thought of as a serious problem that causes coloration and image blurring. These reflections must be considered in the [loudspeaker] design and should be also be considered in the room as well."

Duke