Omnidirectional speakers. The future?


I have been interested in hi-fi for about 25 years. I usually get the hankering to buy something if it knocks my socks off. Like most I started with a pair of box speakers. Then I heard a pair of Magnepans and was instantly hooked on planars. The next sock knocker was a pair of Soundlabs. I saved until I could afford a pair of Millenium 2's. Sock knocker number 3 was a pair of Shahinian Diapasons (Omnidirectional radiators utilizing multiple conventional drivers pointed in four directions). These sounded as much like real music as anything I had ever heard.
Duke from Audiokinesis seems to be onto the importance of loudspeaker radiation patterns. I don't see alot of other posts about the subject.
Sock knocker number four was a pair of Quad 988's. But wait, I'm back to planars. Or am I? It seems the Quads emmulate a point source by utilizing time delay in concentric rings in the diaphragms. At low volumes, the Quads might be better than my Shahinians. Unfortunately they lack deep bass and extreme dynamics so the Shahinians are still my # 1 choice. And what about the highly acclaimed (and rightly so) Soundlabs. These planars are actually constructed on a radius.
I agree with Richard Shahinian. Sound waves in nature propagate in a polyradial trajectory from their point of source. So then doesn't it seem logical that a loudspeaker should try to emmulate nature?

holzhauer

Showing 2 responses by hassel

Any fellow omni-fans might be interested in a new review of an Ohm speaker over on 6moons.com. By the way: Did anybody compare Ohm and Shahinian-speakers?
Living in Moscow, I have the luxury of being able to go to a lot of concerts for litte money, especially classical music. My favourite venue is the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoty, which is as beautiful as it offers outstanding acoustics. I go to jazz clubs, and rock concerts, too. Besides of that, Moscow has become a heaven for high end-nuts, as you can go and listen to any high end-speaker imaginable, which I have done often. Having said that, I found that omnidirectional speakers (in my case Diapasons as well) - if well executed, and coupled with good room acoostics, such as dampaning the wall behind the speakers - give me by far the most convincing memory of what the music in the real venue sounds like. I have had quite a few die-hard direct-sound only guys coming over to my place, leaving as converts for omnis.
May I ask one again, then: Did ayone here compare Shahinia and Ohm speakers?