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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
holzhauer OP
201 posts
 
Duke, I really enjoy your discussions on reverberant fields. I especially like the listen from the next room test. It's funny that you mentioned that. I was just poking around on the net and found some info on a fellow who had reviewed the Hegeman loudspeaker (one of if not the earliest omni). Apparently rather than post the frequency response of the loudspeaker, he described how the woman in his apartment building complained about the person playing the piano late at night. It was a recording of Sir Elton John.
I'm convinced that the reverberant field is very very important also. There are those who espouse the importance of flat frequency response. I personally do not consider the frequency response to be more important than reverberant field. (Yes this is a subjective observation) I have heard several loudspeakers with flatter response than my omni emmulators that did not sound as real.
As you mentioned, all the designs have trade offs. When someone finally designs a loudpeaker with the clarity of an electrostat and the dynamics of a cone speaker and gets the reverberant field correct, I'll be there with my check book ready to buy and invest.
Maybe someday our loudpeakers will be balloons filled with excitable molecules that expand and contract as directed by remote lasers. Ok I'll stop now before I go any farther off the deep end.
gonglee3
304 posts
 
I do like the idea of omni direction speaekers and the way they sound. They sound pleasant and open - after hearing one, a conventional speaker sound veild somewhat in comparison.

I have Sonus Faber with four tweeters on top, and sounds good. Radio Shack has a lineum tweeter that is pretty nice too (somewhat transparent), for DIY speaker builders.

Energy towers have sounds coming out of many places, and sounds nice and open.

If you are DIY, one could make one without too much difficulty for under a grand using premium parts.
jer
46 posts
 
I am so intrigued with this concept that, I am going to try out the hybrid omni directional Ohm Micro Walsh's with the matching center channel for my apartment. Admittedly, I am a little nervous getting them site unseen. They will be my first entry into nicer audiophile speakers and if they don’t work out, well then I’ll just return them. I listened to several less than 1000.00 floorstanders from some respectable manufacturers. B&W JMLAB, Paradigm, Monitor Audio Acoustic Energy, Dali, and only the Dali Suite series seemed to come close to really moving me regarding imaging. That is where I think they will excel. I also seems like everyone that has owned an Ohm Walsh speaker in the past reflects on them with positive memories.
subaruguru
1,362 posts
 
Like mom's apple pie, Jer.
Great posts, Zaikes, Duke.
dawgbyte's avatar
dawgbyte
325 posts
 
Sean, can you please tell us what you think are the top 5 best speakers on the market today and why you think each speaker on your list is exceptional. This is not meant as a flame, it's just a matter of intrigue. It's obvious you have a lot of knowledge in this area and your recommendations could be of value to myself and others on this board.

Thanks,
DB
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