Reverberant rooms make loudspeaker directivity important for sound quality

Evidence

One more important acoustic property of a loudspeaker is its directivity pattern. In an anechoic room, we are only interested in the direct radiation to the listener, but in normal spaces with wall reflections and reverberation the listener receives all these delayed signal counterparts as well. In a relatively reverberant room, it is desirable to use a loudspeaker that has some directivity; that is, it radiates more sound along the main axis than in other directions, especially at middle to high frequencies. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 474

Categorization

• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 474
• XREF: connects to: Concentrating loudspeakers at one point yields the best direct-to-reverberant ratio for a space; Reverberant fields supply most perceived loudness in normal rooms — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1776; Increasing speaker directivity reduces the reverberant field like a tone control does (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• Increasing speaker directivity reduces the reverberant field like a tone control does #expands (0.85)
• Loudspeaker directivity determines which curve predicts the room #expands (0.85)
• Concentrating loudspeakers at one point yields the best direct-to-reverberant ratio for a space #expands (0.80)
• Direct sound governs perceived quality in rooms, not room curves #complicates (0.80)
• Reverberant fields supply most perceived loudness in normal rooms #qualifies (0.78) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1776