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Hi Wayne,Remember that no dipole speaker is capable of ZERO interaction with the side walls of a listening room. And remember that double-blind testing of room treatment changes with near-instant A-B comparison switching time is very difficult, if not near impossible.
To be clear, none of my comments were directed at your work, but referencing what Primare had posted.
Yes, there are zero blind test studies that support lateral absorption improving things...and a of a lot supporting the opposite. This is what I am referring to. Tooles book and articles repeatedly reference the AES papers regarding phantom central imaging and ears only listening preferences for lateral reflections in home listening environments. I could reference all those AES papers, but it requires membership to read.
Actually, it was Tooles book referencing this that created much uproar in the studiophile community and numerous personal attacks against him not understanding reflections, from the same folks who gave us LEDE. Of course, they couldn't cite any blind studies to support their intuition beliefs about reflections either. There aren't any.
That uproar lead directly to this paper: http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=16640
Studiophiles claimed that all the papers Toole referenced didn't apply to them, because they had much greater sensitivity to (and awareness of) reflections than all the trained listeners used in the AES papers.
So McGill University took that exact matter to task and did a listening study using only seasoned studiophiles (the types that hold such beliefs).
The results were rather amusing.
All that said, I have zero issue if someone wants to treat every inch of their space...if it pleases them. Ultimately, that's all that matters. I only take issue with statements about this being "better"...to anyone other than them and their personal taste.
The science clearly runs contrary to this.
cheers