This is always a difficult question to answer because if I claim that there is an effect and you don’t perceive any or the effects don’t matter to you, you might think that you are somehow a defective human or I am simply attempting to prove that I am a superior listener. Yes, there will be an effect, but only you will know if this impacts your enjoyment of the system. 

I attended a high end audio show where companies rented hotel rooms and displayed their stuff -- $100,000 speakers and such. Each company claimed superior sound and would have their guru on site explaining his technology and challenging any negative comment with some sort of personal dismissal. As I was leaving the show people who had never met prior turned to each other asking “did you hear anything that sounded good?”. Edit: The answer was a resounding “No!”

In my experience there are “cheap ears” and “expensive ears”. Cheap ears can be satisfied, expensive ears are never satisfied. Cheap ears are the lucky ears.

You could minimize any effects with a tablecloth, plush would be better than sheer. Even better would be to move ARC to be flush with the front edge of the table.

You might consider a fairly thick felt pad under the tablecloth to reduce reflections of the higher frequencies.

Thanks for both your replies, really appreciated!

Moving the arc to the front edge of the table wont be possible as it will be wall mounted. 

Can I ask what the effect of the tablecloth and felt pad will be? Will they not absorb the sound as it’s projected across the room?

The problem with nearby reflections is that there will be multiple streams, slightly separated in time because they traveled slightly different distances. This tends to blur the audio a bit. Some listeners are very sensitive to this, others are not. If you mount ARC on the wall, you can experiment with pad or no pad and decide for yourself.

Prior to mounting ARC, experiment with the forward placement and the wall placement. You can raise ARC to its approximate wall location with some boxes or blocks.

Hi

Hopefully the diagrams below will illustrate the POSSIBLE affect of having a solid object of some WIDTH directly below a wall mounted Arc. It is by no means intended as a vetted analysis.

Diagram “1” illustrates how sound waves from the Arc MIGHT flow to the listener unobstructed with no object of considerable width below it. 

Diagram “2” illustrates how sound waves from the Arc MIGHT flow to the listener in an obstructed manner with an object of considerable width below it. Keep in mind that a cabinet below a wall mounted Arc (flush against the wall) is typically 45 -50 cm. However, IMO the difference is negligible vs your dining table.

As has been said this all depends upon how accurate you believe your hearing to be as to whether or not you’ll discern any noticeable acoustic difference. Using TruePlay can help to correct any acoustic anomolies for the listening environment. 

Hi

Hopefully the diagrams below will illustrate the POSSIBLE affect of having a solid object of some WIDTH directly below a wall mounted Arc. It is by no means intended as a vetted analysis.

Diagram “1” illustrates how sound waves from the Arc MIGHT flow to the listener unobstructed with no object of considerable width below it. 

Diagram “2” illustrates how sound waves from the Arc MIGHT flow to the listener in an obstructed manner with an object of considerable width below it. Keep in mind that a cabinet below a wall mounted Arc (flush against the wall) is typically 45 -50 cm. However, IMO the difference is negligible vs your dining table.

As has been said this all depends upon how accurate you believe your hearing to be as to whether or not you’ll discern any noticeable acoustic difference. Using TruePlay can help to correct any acoustic anomolies for the listening environment. 

 

 

That’s great, thankyou for your diagrams explaining it!