I couldn’t get to sleep last night, and my mind was wandering rather rapidly round a million different things, but one thing I recall today was that it was wondering why, given rooms and in particular their reflections are the main issue with exception sound reproduction quality, we don’t set up hi-fi listening spaces on the diagonal…
Think about it - the walls move away from the speakers as you move towards the listening position, and when they do come back, their reflections are not likely o hit the listening position without significant attenuation. You don’t have a reflective wall bouncing coherent sound back into the listening space, and ally just turning through45 degrees. Of course, SO acceptance factors may be slim, but it seems, on the face of it, and at 0330 in the morning, a sensible idea…
Much on this on the forum already about the subject in general, e.g current threads:
However I don’t recall there being much note of diagonal setups on this forum, though it has been suggested a few times when people have had problems with awkward shaped rooms, though I don’t recall any subsequent feedback. I have heard one myself, which was forced by the awkward L shaped room and the competing demands of furniture, and it sounded surprisingly good though it wasn’t a full diagonal setup,.
Acoustically setting up a rectangular room diagonally would suffer from the lack of left-right symmetry which might negate any benefit, but for a square room that wouldn’t be the case, and I guess it could work well, reducing some of the room problems. In practical terms I suspect that for most people having also to use the room as a domestic living room, arranging it around its diagonal might ‘feel’ wrong, while sitting facing a corner might not work aesthetically as well as facing a wall with pictures or windows etc, but it certainly would seem worth trying.
Intriguing idea - diagonal set up. I have seen it at a dealer with naim, focal combo. It has fair amount of heavy drapes, carpets, sound treatments and equipments. Frankly, I wasn’t trying to find any dead spots or problems with the room acoustics, but comparing between between kanta, aria and chora.
Like @Innocent_Bystander said, not very practical as a living space. May be ok as a dedicated hifi room. Aesthetically, diagonal does make the room look more interesting.
