Disappearing Speakers Sound Better To You ?


Do you get more enjoyment hearing your speakers imaging "outside or around" their physical boundries, or if you hear your speakers playing "more or less" directly from themselves ?
My Dahlquist DQ30I's sound a little of both. I'm sure recordings influence this affect as does the time and phasing of a given speaker. TAS mentioned this in a recent review of the big Sonus Fabers which brought this thought to my attention.
128x128rx8man

Showing 3 responses by sbank

If the system is working right, it shouldn't matter. Instruments located exactly where a speaker is should sound like that instrument, and others place elsewhere(whether center between the speakers or outside the far edges)should to. With a top flight system, you should also hear depth in the location of sounds, with some instruments deep behind your back wall, others even with the plane between the speakers, and many in between. The best systems will simultaneously portray instruments even forward of the speakers if that's what's on the recording(not quite as common). If any of this is news to you, you need to hear some other systems at a dealer or another audiophile's home. Cheers,
Spencer
Sberger,
I agree that it's your speakers. Your electronics are definitely good enough to reproduce spatial information. The Paradigms just don't excel in that particular area compared to many other speakers.
Rather than touting my own favs, I'd suggest going to a good high end dealer and asking him to demo some systems that excel in this area, to make sure you have a sense of what others are talking about, and how important it is to you. Some(not me) don't give a hoot about spacial reproduction, and focus on timbre, timing, etc.
If you search the archives, you can find recommendations on great demo CDs & LPs to bring along that highlight good soundstaging & imaging. Cheers,
Spencer
Haven't heard that Jospeh model, but there others are pretty credible to my ears.
As far as monitors: There are so many...
Merlin TSMs
Proacs (1sc & others)
Totem (some of their floorstanders are smaller than most monitors1)
Dynaudios
Von Schweikart (VR1)
Reference 3A
These are the ones I'd put on my list...Cheers,
Spencer