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Interesting observations and hypothesis.Another way to describe the Genelec in this big reflective room is that it makes the 'echo' in the room sound much more obvious and distracting. Of course any speaker will be interacting with room's reflections, but in terms of the physics it does make sense that a broader dispersion would 'smear' or 'blur' the reflections out a bit more, creating an effect that rings less like a sharp echo and more like a soft atmospheric spaciousness. For example, imagine the integrated response of 1000 weak reflections at slightly different time delays, versus 1 single reflection at a single time delay reflecting back the same sound power. A single reflection would be obviously more noticeable and unpleasant, where more overlapping reflections at different time delays should average together in a way that at least smooths out the negative effects (and to some extent may add some positive 'euphonic' soundstage effect).
Each reflection won't be softer because the SPL at least in the frontal hemisphere will be the same if both speakers are level-matched. But you are probably onto something with your thoughts about reflections coming from greater angles. The Salon2 will activate a greater surface area of your room. That means for a given SPL, the "mix" includes a greater ratio of reflected sound. It's possible all that sound "fills in" the room better and reduces localization. It's also possible that reducing side wall reflections with the Genelecs means the rear-wall reflection would be more noticeable and perhaps in your space that is undesirable. So it's about ratios and reflections masking the location of the speaker. I'm sure omnidirectional speakers do the same but to the detriment of imaging.
This is all applicable to your room, which looks spacious. It may not translate to a smaller room. In fact, there is reason to believe it is beneficial to reduce beamwidth and reflections in a small room, but I can't say for sure.
Note that according to Dr. Toole, there is almost no reflected sound above 10 kHz, so we're talking below that.
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