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


Hi, it’s me, professional audio troll. I’ve been thinking about something as my new home listening room comes together:

The glory of having a wide sweet spot.

We focus far too much on the dentist chair type of listener experience. A sound which is truly superb only in one location. Then we try to optimize everything exactly in that virtual shoebox we keep our heads in. How many of us look for and optimize our listening experience to have a wide sweet spot instead?

I am reminded of listening to the Magico S1 Mk II speakers. While not flawless one thing they do exceptionally well is, in a good room, provide a very good, stable stereo image across almost any reasonable listening location. Revel’s also do this. There’s no sudden feeling of the image clicking when you are exactly equidistant from the two speakers. The image is good and very stable. Even directly in front of one speaker you can still get a sense of what is in the center and opposite sides. You don’t really notice a loss of focus when off axis like you can in so many setups.

Compare and contrast this with the opposite extreme, Sanders' ESL’s, which are OK off axis but when you are sitting in the right spot you suddenly feel like you are wearing headphones. The situation is very binary. You are either in the sweet spot or you are not.

From now on I’m declaring that I’m going all-in on wide-sweet spot listening. Being able to relax on one side of the couch or another, or meander around the house while enjoying great sounding music is a luxury we should all attempt to recreate.
erik_squires
@erik_squires,@erik_squires, I think you are confusing image specificity with frequency response. Sanders ESLs beam like crazy. You will only get high end directly in front of them but because they beam there is much less room interaction and their image specificity is excellent at the listening position. Move of center and the image falls apart as well as the high end rolls off. Speakers with wide dispersion will sound balanced over a wider area but they also have more room interaction. The on center image is not as specific as the Sanders but it still falls apart off center just the same. The high end just does not roll off. You may not notice the image falling apart as much because the image is not as specific on center. What you really want is a crossoverless ESL with a 45 degree dispersion angle. You will get the sharpest on center image with reasonable frequency response across the listening area. The physics of a two channel audio system are such that the only place you are going to get an accurate image is on the center line. That vast majority of systems do not have a very specific image. This is because of the speaker's dispersion, room acoustics, phasing and time problems and asymmetrical frequency response of the two channels.  

Read about Ambiophonics.
In short if you want a wide "sweat spot" get a speaker that does not image and you will have the widest sweat spot imaginable.
Acoustic is the most misunderstood subject in all audio by audiophiles and ordinary people alike...They all think that the gear magically give the sound almost by itself out of the room acoustic almost and at best "tweaks" are added....Pricier the gear and tweak better it is for sound... This is the market myth....

The room is not first a sum of 6 walls surfaces which passively reflect /absorb/diffuse sound waves...

The room is and could be ACTIVELY an heteregenuous pressurized set of air engines...Helmholtz science here...

Imaging and soundstage are important features of audio experience, but the benchmark of musical experience with an audio system is musical TIMBRE perception...

You can have a apparently relatively good imaging and soundstage without a natural timbre experience...

You cannot have a natural timbre experience without a good imaging and soundstage associated with it...

This is a big distinction....It is my conclusion after my own experiments ....And reading some facts about TIMBRE perception ....
Some of us married more petite women but still think of ourselves as audio lovers.
No big deal.  I carefully choose my seats for the symphony so I am in the sweet spot for the particular room, and I choose a optimal seating position in my listening room.  I don't walk around when listening so what does it matter how wide the sweet spot is?