What do speakers sound like in an anechoic chamber or a big open field, where reflected sound is almost completely eliminated? Do they sound insanely good, or weird?
Well, let's start with a few things:
1) What is the speaker's anechoic response anyways? In these spaces, what you will hear will be dominated by the direct response of the loudspeaker. Simply put, if you're 15 degrees off-axis, you'll hear the sound at 15 degrees off-axis. If you're sitting in a vertical lobing position, you'll hear the lobing.
2) what is sound itself like in an anechoic chamber? Some have described these scenarios as amplifying so much as your own heartbeat. It's caused nauseousness in some people. Generally, we as people prefer echoes. We're not bats, but we still use our hearing for our basic functions.
3) Outdoors. now all of a sudden you do have some reflections. The most obvious one being the ground bounce. You also have to hear the speakers louder, because the noise floor outdoors is going to be even higher than the noise floor indoors.