Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Scaled up

Seriously, the fan shape has been one of the classic designs for theaters and concert halls for a long time, although it has been falling out of favour recently because the lack of parallel-ish sidewalls and associated "immediate echo" is felt to reduce the listening experience.

The interesting question though is whether that applies to a listening room, since one could argue that the purpose of an audio system plus listening room is to recreate the sound of the original performance including the acoustics of the hall in which it was performed. One can also argue that since we tend to have to put wall treatments at first reflection points maybe those first reflections are not wanted anyways.

There may also be a moderate degree of angling (similar to what Axiom uses in its speakers), smaller than a typical concert hall, which maintains enough in the way of side reflections to make the room seem "alive" but still reduces the standing waves at low frequencies. Only thing is that AFAIK the walls would have to be pretty solid in order to have an effect on standing waves, and that would probably be incompatible with putting bass trapping behind them.

Anyways, a listening room with angled side walls has always been on my list of things to try when time permits.