Absorb or Diffuse in between speakers?

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

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

Again, it depends on your speakers and your room. I have had some "omnis" that required nothing behind them. My Apogee panels and ribbons, on the other hand, were very hot off of the rear wall and sounded much better with a considerable amount of diffusion behind them.

Br3098,

Did you mean absorption behind Apogees that were hot off the rear wall?

db

05-25-12: Bryoncunningham
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.

I also preferred diffusion panels (between the speakers) by a considerable margin. I've written about my experience here

Hi Kiwi - Very interesting thread you linked. I agree with many of the things you said. Among them, that the choice between absorption and diffusion is often the choice between imaging and soundstaging. Absorption often improves imaging at the expense of soundstaging. And diffusion often improves soundstaging at the expense of imaging.

IME, the rate at which absorption detracts from soundstaging is *much faster* than the rate at which diffusion detracts from imaging. And of course well placed diffusion results in *much better* imaging than an untreated room, so together that gives diffusion a significant advantage over absorption for many applications.

Again, IMO, IME, etc.

Bryon