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

@musicaddict,@musicaddict,

there is another way: use omnidirectional speakers

I guess my point is that to me, the true audiophile requires the best his/her system can deliver. Trying to do that for multiple positions means you are going to sacrifice the best. That's okay if that's what you want.

I do not buy into the thought, 'I'm a true audiophile because four people can listen to 97% of what my system can do.' Doesn't work that way for me.  I'll take 1x100%

I've heard MBLs plenty at shows, and the good old Bose 901s of yester-year. I always thought the MBLs were great, if you like that kind of spread out sound. I like a bit more definition, and for a head singing to sound like the size of a head.

A lot of these so called true audiophiles think fuses, wires and speakers that have a FR that looks like the snake river provide the best listening experience. Give me a pair of Genelec the ones set up right and you can have a wider sweet spot than the size of your head,  sacrificing nothing.

By way of background: The ear localizes sound by two mechanisms: Arrival time, and intensity. If the arrival times from both speakers are identical, the image will be shifted towards whichever speaker is loudest. And if the intensities are identical, the image will be shifted towards whichever speaker’s output arrives first. With conventional speakers, as you move off to either side of the centerline, the near speakers "wins" BOTH arrival time and intensity, thus the image shifts towards the near speaker, often dramatically so.

What I’m going to suggest is sometimes called "time-intensity trading", as the off-centerline listening locations which have a later arrival from one speaker compensate by having greater intensity (loudness) from that speaker.

I will use your excellent post to illustrate a listening experiment of mine suggested by this japanese article research to me... Adding then to your information the idea of 4 critical thresholds linked to LEV and ASW...



https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223804282_The_relation_between_spatial_impression_and_the_l...




My experience is simple and improve greatly the " imaging" but also the "encompassing sound effect " factor or the auditory source width (ASW) and the listener envelopment (LEV)

I use small Helmholtz pipes of the right volume and neck ratio near the tweeter and near the bass driver but in an asymmetrical fashion between the 2 speakers... One speaker tweeters is linked to 2 Helmholtz  different pipes near the tweeter, the other not.... One speaker is linked with the Helhmoltz  2  different pipes, near the bass driver not the other speaker... The difference of timing of these frequencies between the 2 speakers illustrate this 4 thresholds law which spoke about the japan scientists... This experiments is mine and not in this article...

The effect is huge and explained by the japanese article on the law of the first wavefront linked to their 4 tresholds law in audio....

This is my last experiments and device... I will put it in my audio thread: "miracles in audio"... Where i described my audio journey...

COST: PEANUTS...

Effect: imaging way better and also better timbre....

Conclusion : imaging is not ONLY the result of  the structural electronic engineering of the speakers like suggested in this thread erroneously and ONLY their location , but first and last mostly the result of the law of the first wavefront and of their 4 tresholds in acoustic...


I will repeat the definition of Toole of the law of the first wavefront in his main work :

«In audio in the past, the terms Haas effect and law of the first wavefront
were used to identify this effect, but current scientifi c work has settled on the
other original term, precedence effect. Whatever it is called, it describes the
well-known phenomenon wherein the fi rst arrived sound, normally the direct
sound from a source, dominates our impression of where sound is coming from.
Within a time interval often called the “fusion zone,” we are not aware of
reflected sounds that arrive from other directions as separate spatial events. All
of the sound appears to come from the direction of the first arrival. Sounds that
arrive later than the fusion interval may be perceived as spatially separated
auditory images, coexisting with the direct sound, but the direct sound is still
perceptually dominant. At very long delays, the secondary images are perceived
as echoes, separated in time as well as direction. The literature is not consistent
in language, with the word echo often being used to describe a delayed sound
that is not perceived as being separate in either direction or time.Haas was not
the first person to observe the primacy of the first arrivedsound so far as localization in rooms is concerned.»

Sound Reproduction The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms Floyd Toole Chap.6 P.73