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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
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,964 posts
 
My 15k multichannel setup beats the living daylights out of 100k+ 2 channel setups i have/had. 2 channel setups will have you chasing your tail forever. It’s the very nature of 2 channel setups!
Boasting is not an idea....

I dont doubt that your multi channel is right and wonderful...I believe you completely till  proof of the contrary... 

But 2 channel acoustical embedded right with passive acoustical treatment and active one like with Helmholtz method could be so good that the sound upgrading obsession die...Then advising all people to trash their 2 channels for a fad of yours , so good it is, is not an idea or a possibility for almost all people here...

It is my case like many others who own a 2 channel system done right and by the way i am proud to boast about my 500 bucks system that tail behind anything at any price for musical pleasure ( not soundwise for sure)...Not because of the gear but mainly like a results of adequate controls in his 3 working dimensions...

Price has nothing to do with accoustic, nothing at all, save for sellers....But i used only homemade stuff...
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rauliruegas
13,029 posts
 
Dear @erik_squires  :  "  There’s no concept in my mind of finding a listening location where I have "good imaging" in a live performance. It is all good. "

It's almost all good but not the same, exist differences in between locations/positions.

My choice in a music hall is as close I can if the direct sound of violins are at least at around same level than my ears and seated as close center field as I can. Not that out of the center I don't like  what I'm listening because I like too.

The issue in a live event is that the overall music hall space is truly big with a wider really wider dispersion and direct sound certainly it's not at 2m-3m. from our seat, so things are different that in a home system but even in a live event the sound timing that the sounds arrives to our ears is just critical too.

O ther main and crucial difference is that in a live event exist almost " nothing " but air between the transients and fast harmonics developed between the sound sources/instruments and you.

R.
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rauliruegas
13,029 posts
 
I think that the power and very high dynamics of those transients/harmonics is what permits that almost everywhere can happens what you posted:

""   image within it AND sounds good.  "

Yes, in a live event is almost impossible that at some position/hall location the sound can be really bad. Live and home are two totally different " worlds " for experience MUSIC.

R.
ieales's avatar
ieales
1,201 posts
 
Skip trying to perfect a grossly inadequate number of speakers (i.e 2) for the ultimate music listening experience and go to 5.2.2 atmos setup powered by a good surround processor and amp. Some very smart guys declared that you need a lot more than 2 channels to make it work and they were not wrong.
Horse puckey.

5.2.2 Atmos is nebulous beyond extreme. One may be enveloped in sound but no-one no-how nowhere gets an image such an engineer captured or created. Listening to well recorded 2 channel music, either actual space or studio synthesized, with good ambience on 5.2.2 is almost nauseating.
djones51
4,947 posts
 
Yes, you need music recorded for immersive sound systems. 
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