No , in the sweetspot the stage is excellent. Maybe not in the league as the Kharma Id what is and it is considerably less expensive. Given your dedication to being a critical listener the benifits far outweigh the sacrifices in that with your live room the sound will develop and be fine for parties. It will not sound muffled . Also Mikey s infamously bass crippling review room did not stop Stereophile from awarding the 20 its top slot as many assumed it would and therefore garner a restricted LF rating. The speaker is incredible and you need to audition it . There is , as Freemer noted , a loss of high frequency at elevated listening positions due to the ribbons directionality but its not something you will be alarmed about; especially in a party envirnoment.
Question for Aerial 20T Owners
I am considering the purchase of Aerial 20-T's. One feature of this speaker that may be a real issue for me, however, is its use of a ribbon tweeter that has virtually no vertical dispersion above the top of the tweeter, the result being that persons who are standing evidently receive no high frequencies. While I would buy the speaker principally for my own critical listening in the "sweetspot", my wife and I do quite a bit of entertaining, and I would not want a speaker that sounds totally unnatural or otherwise odd due to a lack of treble to persons standing in the listening room (or even to persons sitting in the dining room, which is immediately adjacent to the listening room).
Both my listening room and all adjacent rooms have mostly hard surfaces and wooden floors, so sound does travel from room to room.
My question is thus to 20-T owners: how natural (or bad or weird) does the speaker sound to those who are standing or who are off axis? Very importantly, how does it sound in adjacent rooms? Is the effect similar to being off-axis for an electrostatic (sounds horrible) or a time-coherent design (still sounds good, but not nearly as good as it does in the sweetspot)? If for any reason you are not comfortable responding publicly via this thread, please e-mail me.
I would simply demo the 20-T's to find out for myself, but there is no display pair anywhere near me (São Paulo).
Thank you.
Both my listening room and all adjacent rooms have mostly hard surfaces and wooden floors, so sound does travel from room to room.
My question is thus to 20-T owners: how natural (or bad or weird) does the speaker sound to those who are standing or who are off axis? Very importantly, how does it sound in adjacent rooms? Is the effect similar to being off-axis for an electrostatic (sounds horrible) or a time-coherent design (still sounds good, but not nearly as good as it does in the sweetspot)? If for any reason you are not comfortable responding publicly via this thread, please e-mail me.
I would simply demo the 20-T's to find out for myself, but there is no display pair anywhere near me (São Paulo).
Thank you.