Recommend a forward speaker

The beaming of line source and panels 'projects' the sound at the listener, and limits the higher frequency content of the room's reverberant field that exaggerates the localization of the source, thus making a forward presentation

My guess is that it has something to do with dispersion of and room interaction with the signal from the upper-mid range thru the highs. Be nice to know though.

I beg to disagree with Duke on this one. To me the narrow or beamed presentation is a dead give away that the vocalist or piano is NOT in the room but at a distance.

Narrow or beaming speakers such as the DAL SC V or panels tend to favor classical music (at a distance) whilst wide dispersion speakers tend to favor a jazz club or rock group more intimate presentation where you feel the singer is in the room (or you are five rows back)

Of course I agree with Newbee that part of the answer is in the way the ear/brain interprets the reverberant field as being realistic or not. A second element is the way the bass needs to be dynamic for listening close up otherwise the illusion in the mid range fails when you hear the kick drum. This is a frequency/dynamic range effect that you can also hear on some bad recordings where you have the disturbing impression that the vocalist is in your room but the drummer is somewhere at the bottom of a tunnel or far away or is somewhere backstage. The third piece is reverberant energy on the recording itself from the recording venue or as deliberately mixed (more often the case today)...this gives spatial cues as to placement of instruments and vocalists and it may easily interfere with the illusion of an intimate presentation if it is not achieved in a convincing manner.

If you want a non intimate presentation try Talking Heads Stop making Sense. An intimate or forward presentation would be Eva Cassidy Live at the Blue Note or Tom Petty's "Last Dance with Mary Jane". In fact the recording plays a big part of it.

Shadorne,

Duke is not infallible. You are more than welcome to disagree with me. However, I don't think I made either of the two statements you quote there (of course if I did... that just proves that I'm right about not being infallible!).

My fall-back position is this: Reduce or remove the room's effects, and the perceived distance to the performers depends more on the recording. If they are supposed to sound like they're far away, they will.

Duke
not infallible... yet.

One other thing you might want to experiment with is the jumper cables between the cabinets. Even a short piece of wire in this position can change the perspective quite a bit. I would suggest some silver wire like Audio Magic or silver coated copper DH Labs wire and see what happens. It's a lot easier than going the whole new speaker route and relatively inexpensive. You can buy the wire and connectors and make them yourself if you can solder. Good luck.

i've got a lot of suggestions on both audiogon and audioasylum. before jumping onto a new speaker purchase, i've decided to do a bunch of auditioning of speakers that might be more my liking and are also within relatively close geographic proximity to me.

i've also turned the bass cabinets around, so the woofers fire forward, and removed the washers that were tilting the back of the speaker forward. this has helped some. actually, it's help quite a bit, but before i go off and say "this is great!" i want to listen. my experience is that long term listening exposes the speaker.

i've also been listening to a lot of different cds, and the recordings really vary alot in how they present the soundstage. yes, my eva cassidy cd is actually perfect. this is exactly the presentation i love. i feel like she's right there, and she even has a little bite in her voice when she pushes it. exhilarating! i also have a stevie wonder (fulfillingness) album that sounds awesome.

so, the repositioning will hold me over. and the auditions i think are a constructive way forward without getting myself into more trouble. system synergy is such a huge deal. a new speaker could really cause all kinds of mayhem.

Duke,

Correct - I didn't quote you - my mistake. My comment was more related to how you consider a narrow dispersion is more of a forward presentation than a wide dispersion...I beg to disagree on that one that is all. However, as Newbee suggests ....there is a lot to a convincing forward or far presentation, it is a combination of many things and dispersion isn't the whole story by far....