Planar close to a rear wall? Quad for example?

hi mjstark:

it is too bad you were not with me when i heard a pair of quads set up in a kitchen. i di not think it would work either. i played an orchestral selection--ravel's alborado del graciso conducted by ansermet.

although depth was not ideal, the timbre of the instruments was quite impressive.

Owning stats for a number of years makes me wonder -HOW???

If its not common knowledge than it should be: all planar speakers need to be a minimum of 5 feet from the rear wall!

Any closer results in tonal colorations, the most pronounced being in the bass. Oddly, the only speaker I have seen that worked at all well at distances closer was indeed the '57, but invariably the owner was using a transistor amplifier, which cannot play bass on the speaker. Nevermind- the backwave reinforcement 'sort of' takes care of that. But put a good tube amp on a setup like that and the owner complains of too much one-note bass.

I used to have my Apogee Stages 18 inches from the wall
and they sounded fine--not boomy or compressed at all.
Maybe the soundstage was a somewhat flat but the tonality
and realism of the Stages was so awesome that I didn't care. I don't have them anymore because the left one's woofer broke.

I had to sell the Quad 63's I purchased from QS and D several weeks after I bought them as I couldnt pull them out more than 3.5 feet or so from the front wall.
Thought this would be enough before I bought them-- I had heard 3-6 feet was "ideal."
Once I had them in-house-- I realized it wasnt ideal whatsoever. No matter what position I tried them in or how much toe-in etc.-- couldnt get them to sound like I know I've heard them sound in a good set-up. Not even close. Dont waste your money until you've got the space.