The amount of misleading "science" thrown around by "audiophiles" sometimes drives me nuts!
Some people obviously like the "sound" of omni-directional speakers - but what they are liking is a form of increased phase and time alignment distortion from having the original signal bouncing around the listening area. There used to be all sorts of electronic "spatializers", or "spacial enhancement" boxes in the 70's and 80's that did exactly what omni's do - introduce controlled phase and time distortion. Why? - because some people found it pleasant or fun. "Distortion", which is simply a deviation from the original source's output, isn't necessarily unpleasant but let's be real about what it is.
1. Your ears are not able to discern the broad "shape" of the "front" of a soundwave. A change in the air pressure in your ear canal moves your eardrum either in or out, which in turn vibrates some bones, which then vibrate fluid in your inner ear, and finally - at the back of your inner ear that is converted to an electrical impulse. In addition, the "cleanest" wave you can incite will come from a smooth "point" source.
2. The idea that somehow bouncing recorded output around at random is more accurate than directing back, from a "point source", what stereo microphones have already picked up is nonsense and/or marketing hype. You only have two ears - and they do exactly the same thing as microphones. You don't need 6 or 8 ears to receive spatial information. The most accurate thing a speaker can do is create in reverse EXACTLY what occured at the diaphragm of the microphone. It's extremely delicate information, and the more it bounces around the room, the more of it is lost, period! Of course it's not perfect reproduction - everything ELSE a speaker does may sound good to some people and bad to others, but it's "distortion". The spatial information of the original sounds' environment is ALREADY IN THE SIGNAL - you don't need to somehow alter or re-recreate it to make it more "real".
3. I have owned many types and brands of speakers, sometimes 8 or 10 pairs at once, and have a very nice A/B testing set-up where I can swap from one pair to another using only a foot switch. I personally prefer minimum baffle speakers***. But for example, even in A/B testing the Dahlquist DQ20i (minimum baffle) against the Alon V (which is an extremely similar design but has a 90% OPEN baffle mid and tweet) it is becomes apparent how much distortion the rear waves from the Alon's sets up. By itself, it sounds "open" and "spacious" - in A/B it sounds open, spacious, and MUDDY!
*** Of course, minimum baffle design is also a trade-off of where you like your distortion, too. Instead of output reflecting immediately off the baffle, there'll be more "escaping" to reflect from surrounding walls, etc. Apparently, my ears prefer that.