Dispersion, narrow, controlled, or bi?

@erik_squires wrote:  "... I’ve often wondered what the results would be of using a separate preamp/amp/speaker pair to reflect sound would be like.   You could completely alter the volume and even use DSP to tailor the reflections. "

If  you decide to try that some day, note that (unlike your main speakers) it is the POWER RESPONSE of the dedicated-to-reflections speakers that matters most.  You could even EQ them such that their power response "zigs" where the main speaker’s off-axis response "zags". 

@erik_squires again:  "I’m really against the idea of adding more speakers in terms of floor space"

Ime the arrival time of the additional reflection energy matters more than the arrival direction, so you might try using the vertical!  Maybe you could place small dedicated-to-reflections speakers on the floor, facing up, behind the main speakers. Often there’s some unused floor space behind the main speakers anyway.

Also, I suggest that you "shield" the dedicated-to-reflections speakers so that they cannot be seen from the listening area.  Not that seeing them is bad, but they will have some radiation to their sides, and you want to block that off because otherwise it will arrive too early and will probably have a poor spectral content.  If your main speakers are floorstanders, their width may well be adequate. 

Duke

Thanks for the suggestions, Duke, but honestly in terms of money and time the entire idea is well beyond me right now.  I was however thinking of a number of passive speakers that have implemented smallish rear firing drivers (like a tweeter or 2-3" mid) and think perhaps in the future a wave of active speakers could do the idea more justice.   Having a smallish amp and DSP settings for the rear firing may make for very interesting customization. 

I've never heard them, but the Steinway/Lyngdorf (at least some of their models) are powered dipoles with DSP.  They look quite interesting.

I prefer a large radiation area and front firing, tall horn or horn hybrid design with a controlled, narrow and fairly uniform dispersion pattern. Smaller and lower horn-based designs tend to be too "beamy" and upfront sounding for my taste and more easily give off themselves as speakers than a more uninhibited field of sound.

Multi directional speakers can have an advantage with a more spacious soundstage, but generally I find them too diffuse sounding - indeed almost too or even annoyingly spacious (in which case they mayn’t have been well implemented).

A front firing only, tall and large radiation area horn-based design as described above to my ears compensates immersively through the sheer size of its radiation field with a more distinct, yet still relaxed and fuller presentation - a good, a rather natural sounding compromise, I find. 

@audiokinesis wrote:

[...] note that (unlike your main speakers) it is the POWER RESPONSE of the dedicated-to-reflections speakers that matters most.

Why isn’t the power response of the main speakers of a primary concern here? Introducing a reflective sound field "actively" with additional speakers is also an additional measure to get right. Isn’t that a degree of complexity that can invite more problems than what it tries to solve?

@phusis wrote:  "I prefer a large radiation area and front firing, tall horn or horn hybrid design with a controlled, narrow and fairly uniform dispersion pattern."

Me too!  But I haven’t done anything as large as your speakers (yet), so you are getting good radiation pattern control down lower than I am.  What are the radiation patterns of your big horn and tweeter, if you don’t mind?

Phusis again:  "Why isn’t the power response of the main speakers of a primary concern here?"

Well I suppose the NET in-room power response is the primary concern, and what I was suggesting to @erik_squires was a way of CORRECTING the in-room power response by adding correctively-EQ’d speakers whose response arrived late enough that it was only contributing to the in-room reflection field.  To put it another way, the main speakers’ power response is essentially unchangeable without also changing the direct sound, so if we want to leave the direct sound unchanged but improve the in-room reflection field, adding a pair of dedicated-to-reflections speakers is one way to do that.

Phusis once more:  "Introducing a reflective sound field "actively" with additional speakers is also an additional measure to get right. Isn’t that a degree of complexity that can invite more problems than what it tries to solve?"

Yes!  That’s why I was making a few suggestions to Erik in response to him having "often wondered what the results would be of using a separate preamp/amp/speaker pair to reflect sound." 

Tying back in to the topic of this thread, "dispersion":  Reflection-field-correcting rear-firing drivers are something I’ve been doing passively, as an integral part of the loudspeaker system design, for many years.