Absorb or Diffuse in between speakers?

Wolf, I doubt that there is anyone else exactly like you. Meant in a nice way, of course.

>>Absorb or Diffuse in between speakers?

I would say that it depends on the speakers and on your room. As a rule of thumb, I usually absorb between box speakers and diffuse between dipoles and bipoles. But again, it depends on your room.

Rather than blind testing, I would suggest that you spend a little time and a very little money and perform an analysis on your room. I know that this seems like less fun than just blindly buying a bunch of treatments, but it will almost certainly result in better sound.

Both GIK Acoustics and RealTraps have posted a lot of free advise on their web pages. Start here: RealTraps - Room Measurement Series

and here: RealTraps - Acoustic Articles

It's really not at all hard to do, once you understand the basics, and will definitely result in the best result.

"As a rule of thumb, I usually absorb between box speakers and diffuse between dipoles and bipoles"

Omnis diffuse naturally and save having to deal with directional issues for the most part.

It takes the edge off the sound. More important is bass absorption in the corners.

I agree with the other posters that it depends on your room. I also agree that you should experiment.

Personally, I've tried both absorption and diffusion between my speakers. I prefer diffusion by a considerable margin. In my case, absorption resulted in a significant increase in clarity, but at the expense of decreasing both the size of images and the depth of the soundstage. Diffusion suffered from neither of those problems, and provided 90% of the gains in clarity that absorption provided.

IME, getting the balance of absorption to diffusion right is a critical, and often overlooked, determinant of sound quality. In addition to the expected effects, like resolution, coherence, imaging, etc., the ratio and location of absorption/diffusion is also a major factor in creating the illusion that "You are There."

Bryon