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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
deep_333
1,305 posts
 
@mahgister, Huh? No boasting or fad on my side….Quit the blanket accusations, relax and try to think this through for a minute. All I did was share the results of a 20 year long exploration of what can be achieved with well made electronics and speakers. In fact, it is this 2 channel “purist” notion that is perpetuated in these circles that leads to constant disgruntlement and endless emptying of one’s wallet with vendors who are happy to take your cash.

After one spends an arm and a leg on the best 2 channel gear/speakers money can buy, he will realize that it is only trying to scratch the surface of what a multichannel setup can achieve at a fraction of the cost. This was my reason to throw some cost numbers out there

You can treat your room all day long and keep praying. But, if you want the orchestra to come right home, those 2 speakers are simply not going to cut it. A multichannel setup is also a lot more forgiving for mortals who don’t have the best rooms/treatments in place as well. SCIENCE and research will deliver you the ultimate music listening experience, not this notion of “purism” spread in these circles.

I hope this post save the wallets of some of the 2 channel tail chasing mortals out here. But, if you achieved some miracle with your God like homemade gear and your God like understanding of room acoustics (done the right way apparently!), more power to you. Good luck.
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,964 posts
 
You can treat your room all day long and keep praying. But, if you want the orchestra to come right home, those 2 speakers are simply not going to cut it
First i apologize for my choice of the word "boasting".... I did not wanted to offend you but i did...

Then my complete apology... I am like you a passionate temper...


Second i intervened because your view even if right is not a balanced opinion...

I dont have a God like understanding at all, in fact i am ignorant, but i figure out something that work but which is not taught in audio forum: the Helmholtz method....

I thank you for your passion we all  like that, at least most of us ....  But two opinions are better than one....😁😊😁 If not? Who knows how many people would trash their 2 way system in the river? 

My deepest respects.....
erik_squires OP
16,021 posts
 
Don't get me wrong, there are expensive and cheap seats and, unlike in a lot of audio, you always get what you pay for! :)

What I mean is, the idea that my listening position will no longer convey the location of the performers accurately because of dispersion or phase or timing issues vanishes.  The violin or the singer or the piano sound arrives at my head without the degradation possible by attempting to reconstruct the music via 2 speakers. Or 20 speakers.  The imaging in real life is always correct.
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rauliruegas
13,029 posts
 
Dear @deep333 : "   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.

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. "

I think that you are making " universal " statements in two way different sound reproduction room/systems.

A multichannel set up has totally different main targets that a plain stere/two speaker system and because the targets are different in between you can't or I can't said that one of these alternatives is superior to the other one.

You speak for your self and according your sound reproduction priorities and I speak for my self where the main target in my room/system ( is not that the orchestra be in the room. This not even a multichannel can do it, it's just a crazy statement. ) is to stay nearer to the recording nearer to what the recording microphones pick-up and to achieve that in the best way I need to put all type of generated room/system distortions at minimum adding the less audio signal manipulation at all system levels.

My main target precludes/avoids the multichannel alternatives where there is no way to stay nearer to the recording no matters what.

Certainly you have a different target or targets and your multichannel system is not superior to a two speaker system in any way. We can't compare oranges with apples as you did it.

R.
deep_333
1,305 posts
 
@rauliruegas As far the mastering apparatus is concerned, atmos/dts X/auro mastering suites offer the ability to accurately place all musicians in a 3D soundfield and get away from this 2 channel gimmickery. Unfortunately, as it is fairly new, not many mastering engineers are educated/have acquired the higher skill level to work with this mastering suite yet. Perhaps it’s harder to teach a old dog new tricks, but, i have more hope for the younger mastering engineers moving up in life. After these recordings start coming out en masse, all this 2 channel gimmickery is bound to look plain silly. Even when it’s not natively done, a majority of the 2 channel recordings that continue to come out right now are awful. Even in these instances, the intelligent algorithms built into upmixers tend to do a commendable salvage job and make it sound quite good.

This is not to be confused with quad and all the other failed attempts from the past decades, which is what more guys are familiar with. Entry level users watching movies with entry level receivers and crappy surround/in-ceiling speakers have further muddied the perception of what this platform is actually capable of. But, a serious atmos setup that means business does exactly what it was designed to do.

Before mag lev bullet trains came around, coal trains were king indeed. I am sure many guys would continue to ride a coal train for sweet nostalgic purposes with soot on their faces. I choose to move on.
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