Speakers that disappear

Keep in mind that the room and how any speakers interact with the room acoustics matters almost as much as the actual speakers.  

+1 @rick_n 

Every flat surface in the room becomes a transducer and effects the original sound wave. 

Not known for the diminutive size or WAF but once you hear a proper open baffle set up correctly its hard to forget.

I think it's a combination of speaker placement, preamp and speaker also that lets the speakers disappear. 

Along with room acoustics and the speaker the gear used can be important.  I had Magnepan 1.7i's (they are dipoles) and they were a bit harsh and beaming initially (they come with resistors to tame the high end if needed).  I upgraded to 3.7i's and they were better/ smoother/less beamy.

I upgraded the amp's, pre-amp, streamer and added 2 subs and that helped make them open up the soundstage and added more 3D effect.  When I added noise control with high end switches with ground plane noise control and fiber and two CAD Ground Control boxes the speakers do a much better job of disappearing with most tracks.

Amazingly enough the amp used matters a lot as well. 

Agree with Maggie's 3.7i but they do need a high current amp and subs add a lot. . What sold me was listening to Back in the USSR. They do miss on the not to big mark however. 

Any QLN, Acora, Vivid, Vandy, and many planars.

Placement is key.  Not all speakers can be placed in the same position.  A KEF Reference speaker needs at least three feet from the front wall and the sidewalls, but a Wilson is totally different.  Even though it’s rear ported, Sonus Farber says that they are best at about 8” from the front wall. 
And of course, no to rooms are the same.

Your local porch pirate should be able to help you with that. Or, you might consider a Magnepan dealer.

Search borensen x1.

One of the speakers that will absolutely pull off a disappearing act most effectively and better than most all others are Joseph Audio speakers.  Just pick the ones that fit your space and budget.  Best of luck. 

Setup is critical and it will vary with the speaker.  This includes room treatments. There needs to be space behind the speakers more than beside. Then the recording will be the next most important. Some recordings will never allow speakers to disappear. Many brands can accomplish your request. 

Here are some of the better planar-magnetics, as reviewed by Steve Guttenberg:

https://youtu.be/KQh66jM7aLE?si=DOZY9T_YQK_Xs09c

https://youtu.be/R4vC3V00-3Y?si=WG3jeG-w0JoIjt-0

https://youtu.be/Uc5O5T1UHkE?si=f6EKNO__s2ZVusje

For $1500 the KLH Model 3's do this disappearing act as well as anyone of my 15 pr. of different speakers....and they're a FUN speaker to listen to with beautiful looks.....no sub needed.

In a way, size matters, too. The return of 70’s era wide baffle KLH, JBL, Wharfedale and Mission mid-fi speakers to popularity has as much to with the way they are engineered around the baffle step as it does with their nostalgic warmth and appearance IMO. My Wharefdale Lintons are not fatiguing and very musical for affordable money. As others have shared, it took a while to use a combination of positioning, hardware and settings to deliver a nice invisible soundstage, but they got there. I think a big part of “invisible” is in the midrange, if voices and the tones of acoustic instruments are clear and natural, the source sounds less obvious to my decidedly non-golden ears. 
 

The Lintons dip down to just under 4 ohms and are rated at 6 ohms, so they like current but they are very natural up to a point just short of rattling our 1924 bungalow’s vintage window sashes LOL.

If your P3 doesn’t disappear then you should be lookin’ for other components. I’ve owned that speaker and it disappeared better than the larger Harbeths and other larger speakers that I have owned!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqFIaiPT_kY

+1 for the Maggie 3.7i with a Rogue Cronus iii Dark and a pair of subs, but also agree they are tall and will never disappear visually unless you listen with your eyes closed. 🙈

Long ago, I had a pair of diminutive ADS bookshelf speakers that “disappeared” and presented a wonderful soundstage.  I do not remember the model number but they were wonderful … except for lacking substantial base   Fast forward to the present, and my Fyne F-702 speakers come close to doing this.  Superb lateral and fron to rear dispersion, excellent tonal qualities, and much better bass than the old ADS speakers.  I said “almost” because they a fairly large, black obelisks, almost.  But, they do “virtually disappear.”

All speakers can “disappear “

Its almost always placement

and minimal room reflections

as been said above   Minimize 

room reflections and pick music that 

doesn't have widely panned instruments and or vocals

and truly most speakers will disappear 

Good luck Willy-T

+1 for yogiboy

i heard some smaller Harbeths set up at a dealer where the soundstage was feet behind the speakers. Total disappearing act.
 

Just got a new pair of PMC Twenty5.24i’s. Huge upgrade from the Buchardts I had previously. Soundstage and imaging very impressive. Nord 227wpc with upgraded op amp. QED Golden Anniversary XT cables. Music excellent disappearing act .Movies, you are there!

KEF LS50’s image very well and are smaller. You can go up the chain as well, the Reference 1’s will do the trick too. I believe the coaxial tweeter/midrange design is a bit more forgiving in terms of placement and sitting position.

Think most will disappear if setup correctly 

Some do it better than others. ;-)  Planars have been mentioned, Joseph Audio.  ProAcs are well-known for "disappearing" and throwing a big, open, coherent sound stage.  That's one of many things I like about my old Response 2's.  I'm rarely, if ever, concious of them.  Nesteroviches disappear amazingly well for an old-fashioned "box" speaker, but they're getting hard to come by and the drivers aren't replaceable.

I had Focal Aria 906’s on the factory stands and could easily make mine disappear at the front of the room.  Soundstage was nice and wide, and you could not pinpoint the exact location of the speakers. Phantom center channel was right where it should be. In my room that ended up being with slight toe-out (not in).  What did you find with the 906 that you could not accomplish. As others have said a lot has to do with the room as well.  I have since moved on to Aria 926 with similar results (but the 926 require toe-in and a slight tilt forward). 

After you do all of the above, turn the lights off at night, poof…speakers disappear. I’m completely serious. After hours of placement experiments, some room treatment, center seat of sofa in just the right spot, well recorded track, lights off and my Klipsch disappear completely. The only thing you can see are a few LEDs and the beautiful glow of 845 output tubes. Spooky good! 

Same theme in the responses here, Room treatments, Set-up, and Synergy. 

Not sure of your budget but another idea would be the MBL 126 I have not heard it but it does get incredible reviews and seems to have the traits you are looking for. 

+1000 to everyone who mentioned synergy. I have a story for you from last week.

A friend owns a number of speakers. Focal Utopia Scala Evo, Dynaudio Confidence 60 and Dali Epicon 8. This story is about the Dali.

He is fortunate to have access to numerous components from many different manufactures. Every time a new piece arrives we have a listening session where we try all three speakers and compare against his reference. 

In every case, the Dali was forward and the speakers never disappeared, regardless of placement. This changed last week when his new reference amp and preamp arrived. 

Not only do the Dali disappear, but we preferred the result of this combination over the other speakers. They went from being my least favorite to us thinking the new Epikore 11 could be his new end game with this combo.

Synergy is everything. We have had many huge lessons at his place with the ability to have so much gear come and go, but this ranks possibly at the top in terms of a 180 from a single component change. I say single because it was the amp, his older preamp resulted in the same disappearing act. 

@willy-t wrote, "pick music that doesn't have widely panned instruments and or vocals"  Oh man you hit a nerve there for me!  This is one of my biggest peeves.  Sound engineers often try and do too much and overwide panning has ruined too many songs that we all love.  I find that when engineers try and spread the mix as wide as possible the sound gets trapped and never releases from the speakers and just makes mud.  

For the OP to realize his goal when auditioning new speakers I would recommend that he hand picks some tracks that are very well recorded and that are known to produce a good sound stage.  I would look for music recorded by Alan Parsons and Ken Caillat, they are two of the very best at getting good sound that allows the speakers to disappear.

One other thing to keep in mind when auditioning is that more complicated music with more band pieces is harder for the speakers to render.  Simple acoustic or small ensembles can be successfully reproduced by any entry level Best Buy speakers but the bigger more complicated stuff will separate the wheat from the chaff during your demos.  Good luck and cheers.

check out the monitor audio platinum 100s if it's in your budget or the gold 100s.

@willy-t  has it right.  Ignore all the specific speaker recommendations.

Quality of Recording is really important, placement of listening chair.  And volume.

Unfortunately, speakers are always at the mercy of recording quality.

While I agree that all speakers “can” disappear to some extent or another and that things like the room and recording quality also matter significantly, some speakers still just inherently and more easily and completely disappear as a sound source better than others regardless of other factors.  Joseph Audio does this and I’ll add ProAc in there too as standouts although there are certainly some others that pull this off well.  So to say individual speaker recommendations are not helpful in this regard is simply not accurate in my experience because certain brands do excel at disappearing as a sound source better than others, and that’s what the OP was asking for here. 

Most comments in this thread are correct and setup is key. I will add low defraction designs will help too. I am not too much into stand mount speakers and I can’t not recommend anything but speakers with round smooth surfaces and narrow faces will help (think Vivid Audio, Kef blade, etc). 

If you have a difficult room and having a hard time with placement, Dirac Live can do wonders.  It did for me.  Good luck.

B&W  801#3 Drivebn with krell ksa250

Completely disappeared.

Id look at the speaker's and wondered what the hell are those things

Really

The ProAc Tabletttes do a great disappearing act. I still remember being amazed at this small system with the anniversary edition from CAF 2013.

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2013/08/04/caf-2013-deja-vu/

Bowers and Wilkins with tweeter on top designs are amazing at wide soundstage and disappearing act. 

I always listen in the dark; I guess that probably doesn't count?

I run a pair of slightly modified KEF C55 stand mounts. They disappear with lights on or off. 🤘🏼

GR Research's NX Studio disappear amazingly well.

Open baffle planar tweeters are the magic.

They are kits, but they come with finished baffles, and flat packs are available (so you don't have to do any wood cutting). 

The end results are a speaker that compete with speakers at at least twice their price.

NX Studio

Had some in the back seat of my unlocked car disappear.

My choices would be as follows:

1.  Magnepan LRS+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY-zS4eJogE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lprCVHnMmDg&t=83s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLdlZ5bJXIY&t=433s

I have these, as well as several Harbeths, and had the LS50's several years ago.  They're all superb - but - I really prefer the LRS+ with the right electronics and set up.  Both these and the Harbeths are very hard to beat - though, I think with the right set up... the LRS+ are about as good as it gets... no matter what speakers you chose.  They are truly "giant killers" for modestly sized rooms and can be easily moved for listening... and out of the way, when not.  

2.  Harbeth P3ESR XD 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGnWGMfg08k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up6ZpOGt66E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9nsm8ghU7o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iN2aRmYfsY

The Harbeths would be my close 2nd...

3.  KEF LS50 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFUGo_zGUgE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uTT1aYQ0Hs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXgt8BhqckA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5UEMS1efys

Ive had some very good soundstage affects but, never made my Maggie 1.7i s disappear  however, another " cheating way" as mentioned, listening in the dark or in my case dimly lit room really changes the visual / accustic dimension. I also project a DJ light  / party light againest the front wall. This seems to open the front wall and distract the eyes from the speakers.

May sound silly, but the soundstage is so much better than lights on or day time listening. .

I once heard old Polk Audio box speakers ( forgot model #) that used their unique interconnenct between speakers. The phantom sounds from way beyond the speakers was amazing. 

My Heils' and Walsh do that all the time.....

'Fatigue' is from reading complaints....

My Rockports completely vanish.

They rarely ever get mentioned in a conversation like this, but my Polk Audio Legend L 800 are among the best speakers I have ever heard when it comes to the disappearing act. They require proper set up and replacement, but if you take the time to do it they will simply vanish into the ether. Associated gear is also important, and my system consists of Carver Raven monoblock, McIntosh C2300, and Simaudio 680D…

In my experience the best speakers at disappearing tend to be planar - the original Quads were quite good and ones that I still own, primarily because of this particular attribute, are Martin Logan CLS.

This, Why I liked MQA so much, the hi rez mqa was so spacious sounding that the room, speakers and everything in it disappeared.....

  I find the further I can get speakers away from reflecting surfaces the easier they vanish audibly.