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If you don't have a wide sweet spot, are you really an audiophile?

Hi, it’s me, professional audio troll. I’ve been thinking about something as my new home listening room comes together:

The glory of having a wide sweet spot.

We focus far too much on the dentist chair type of listener experience. A sound which is truly superb only in one location. Then we try to optimize everything exactly in that virtual shoebox we keep our heads in. How many of us look for and optimize our listening experience to have a wide sweet spot instead?

I am reminded of listening to the Magico S1 Mk II speakers. While not flawless one thing they do exceptionally well is, in a good room, provide a very good, stable stereo image across almost any reasonable listening location. Revel’s also do this. There’s no sudden feeling of the image clicking when you are exactly equidistant from the two speakers. The image is good and very stable. Even directly in front of one speaker you can still get a sense of what is in the center and opposite sides. You don’t really notice a loss of focus when off axis like you can in so many setups.

Compare and contrast this with the opposite extreme, Sanders' ESL’s, which are OK off axis but when you are sitting in the right spot you suddenly feel like you are wearing headphones. The situation is very binary. You are either in the sweet spot or you are not.

From now on I’m declaring that I’m going all-in on wide-sweet spot listening. Being able to relax on one side of the couch or another, or meander around the house while enjoying great sounding music is a luxury we should all attempt to recreate.
erik_squires

Showing 3 responses by jdane

jdane
183 posts
 
I do know what 'timbre' means in music, but I confess I have absolutely no clue what that word means in the context it's being used here.

Serious question:  could someone explain it in such a way that a normal listener can understand what it means here?  

Thanks.
jdane
183 posts
 
Mahgister: with all due respect, I didn’t ask you to explain the normal meaning of timbre, with which I am familiar. 

I asked you to explain in simple terms how you were using this common musical term in this context. I actually think you may be on to something, but I still have no idea what that is.

(The reason I ask is that I have spent most of my life reading and writing articles on specialized topics of no interest to anyone here and of no real import generally; but I did learn during those decades, that the only arguments, however banal or abstruse, that have any validity are those that can be explained or summarized  in ordinary language. I do not consider it a moral failing not to be an electrical engineer or not to be an expert in any other field.)
jdane
183 posts
 
Mahgister--  OK. Now I'm following this. Your later posts seem (at least to me) to use the ordinary meaning of timbre.  What I did not understand was the relation of this to things like "imaging" or "soundstage", which I believe in this context are essentially 'something else' (perhaps not 'red herrings', but not crucial to what you're talking about).  But yes, surely the reproduction of timbre correctly will improve our experience of music (and even perhaps enhance the feeling that instruments are 'right there' or 'over there'.)
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