What effect to exposed wooden beams have on sound quality?

[KollyKibber]

See attached photo, for example.

Are they terrible or do they not have much effect?

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

These exposed beams' room modes and standing wave patterns primarily affect indirect bass frequencies.
As long as the path from the speakers to your ears isn't directly obstructed - it shouldn't matter much for middle and higher frequency ranges.
Going back to bass frequencies, it would be tough to calculate, but with careful subwoofer placements, any negative bass playback quality could largely avoid worse effects.

A much bigger issue in this example is the TV in the corner. You can't build a good-sounding system based on a TV in the corner. It will nearly always sound boomy.

 

[KollyKibber]

Thanks. That's not my setup, just house hunting and considering my options. TV definitely won't be going in a corner!

 

[ryanosaur]

I have exposed wooden beams on a clerestory ceiling and have not identified any specific deleterious effect.

More than anything else, I would chalk the potential effect of some diffraction up to those beams. Not enough to break up a slap echo or anything, but depending on their size, any wavelength shorter than the beams height will get bounced around by them.

just by that photo, I’d personally be more concerned about how the windows and fireplace will have to be dealt with for best SQ.