Need Speakers to be Close to Wall $10k budget

Obviously the easiest would be if you are happy with the Audio Physic in your new space. However, as noted, Audio Note are designed to be placed near to the and, ideally, in corners. VR22, VR33, or VR35 that are designed to be placed near to the wall and listened from an off-axis position. My Zu Def 4s are inches from the back wall; all Zu speakers are easy to place. Audio Note and Zu speakers are SET friendly.

In my experience, omnis and other polydirectionals (such as bipoles and dipoles) that bounce a lot of energy off the wall behind the speakers do not work well up against the wall. Those reflections need a much longer time interval before they arrive in order to be beneficial rather than detrimental.

On the other hand, the additional reverberant energy (if spectrally correct) adds a great deal to soundstaging and the overall sense of realism if it arrives fairly late. And in this context, the fuzzy line where "fairly late" begins is about ten milliseconds. This is the sort of time delay the rear bounce of a dipole speaker will have if it's about five feet out in front of the wall. That's not a hard and fast cut-off point, but in general owners of dipole speakers find they sound better with a fair amount of space behind them.

Okay, back to the problems of up-against-the-wall speakers. The soundstage depth is naturally pancaked by the wall being so close... I think the ear/brain system can hear how far away the wall is from the sound source by the reflections off the wall, and generally won't let the image depth extend any deeper beyond the wall than the speakers are out in front of it. So if the front of the speaker cabinet is 12 inches in front of the wall, on a good recording I think you might get the soundstage to extend 12 inches behind the wall. If the front of the speaker is 5 feet in front of the wall, I think you might get the soundstage to extend another 5 feet behind the wall.

But, what if we do a polydirectional speaker that ends up delivering a much longer time delay, by firing the additional reverberant energy off in another direction? That mask the relatively short distance to the wall behind the speakers, and result in greater soundstage depth.

We could fire the additional energy to the side, if the sidewalls are far enough away. I built such a system in 2010, but was not the first - ESP did it before me.

Or we could fire the additional energy up, so that it takes a long bounce off the ceiling. Richard Shahinian did it first, but imo Jim Romeyn did it best, and I've licensed his configuration, and showed it at RMAF 2013.

Finally, we could use an enclosure that allows the woofer and midrange backwave energy to bounce around inside the box a bit and emerge with the spectrum well-preserved after a decent time delay, thus simulating to a certain extent the presentation of a dipole out in the room several feet. I showed a speaker that does that at RMAF 2013 (yes, I was crazy enough to show two systems in one modest-sized room).

Of course getting decent soundstage depth is not the only challenge facing up-against-the-wall placement; the bass response is boosted, and if that isn't taken into account by the designer, can easily be overbearing (Audio Note and Zu and the Gradient Revolution mentioned above all address this issue well, and ime Audio Note in particular does a superb job of taking advantage of the resulting boundary reinforcement). We can end up with over-emphasis in the lower treble region if the radiation pattern has a flare in that region, in which case the likely result is eventual listening fatigue. We can get a comb-filter notch from the bounce off the wall behind the speakers, which the ear/brain system would normally tend to ignore, but if it coincides with the floor-bounce notch, it could be an audible problem.

I didn't set out to get deep into up-against-the-wall speaker design, but in the course of pursuing what I believe to be room-friendly concepts, it just sort of happened.

In a good used up-against-the-wall speaker, I'd suggest the Shahinian Diapason or the Snell Acoustics Type A.

You might be able to modify conventional ported speakers for up-against-the-wall placement by lowering their tuning frequency. This can be accomplished by either reducing the port area (throughout the entire length of the port), or lengthening the port, or some combination thereof. You can also reduce the port's contribution by stuffing it with polyfill or somesuch, or even seal it off entirely, resulting in an (probably low-Q) sealed box. User-adjustable port tuning is something else I like to include in my ported designs, specifically to accomodate a wide range of room acoustic situations and amplifier types.

Speaking of which, I'm a big fan of OTL amps, and imo you might not want to trade away OTL friendliness if you don't have to.

Best of luck with your quest,

Duke LeJeune
dealer/manufacturer

Outlier... Check out the Wilson Duette's. They come with two sets of speaker cable pigtails and resistors that re-configure them for placement either right up against a back wall... or out in the open. Wilson recently came out with the Duette II's so original Duette's are presently being offered on AudiogoN at bargain basement prices.

Placing my speakers "out in the open" was never an option for me so I grabbed a pair of the Wilson Duette's and I'm happy... happy... happy.

Thanks everyone for the responses - all good reading. I made
my move a couple of days ago and it will take another couple
of days before my system is up and running again. I'll
definitley check if I can make the Avanti's work in the
room. I do LOVE the pinpoint imaging that these older Audio
Physic's are famous for - they really disappear (I owned the
Virgo II as well, and these were even more impressive with
regard to imaging), but will need to see if they still have
that magic in this new room and/or if other downsides
present themselves.

I did notice the Duettes on Audiogon and they do intrigue me
a bit, in that they are designed for 'hostile' environments
and they may work well in the smaller room I have. Will see.

Outlier, if your Avantis cannot work to your satisfaction I have another recommendation. And they come in fairly well below your $10K limit.

The new Janszen zA2.1 projects a large, full, and detailed musical presentation from a modest sized package. It is a hybrid with electrostatic mid/tweeter above 500 Hz and dual cone woofers below. Three things make it unusual, beyond it's sonic capabilities. First is the rear of the cabinet is enclosed, rather than open as with most dipole drivers. Therefore it can be placed closer to the front wall than many other speakers while still presenting a wide and deep soundstage. My pair sits out only 15" from the wall after careful experimentation with placement. Second is the excellent integration for a hybrid design. Any others I've heard have some level of discontinuity between the electrostatic and cone drivers, but not the zA2.1s. Third is they are easier to drive than most electrostatics. Nominal impedance is rated at 6 ohms but their load only varies from 4 to 10 ohms. And while rated at 87 dB efficiency, when the controls are increased to the top of their respective ranges (+3 woofer and 0 mid/tweeter) they are closer to 90 dB. I imagine your JEs would sound wonderful, although they provide more power than would be needed.

Anyway, good luck.