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Do any speakers image/sound-stage close to walls?

I'm about to spend a huge amount of $$ on full-range speakers, but realise from all the published acoustical data and conventional wisdom, that the laws of physics are absolute. So, in a 17 X 23 X 15ft ceilinged room, when I have to place the speakers no more than 12" from the front (short) wall, 2 ft from the side walls (for WAF and furniture and structural reasons - dont ask,) am I blowing my money? The source, preamp, amps are all superb - but what do I do about finding speakers to match? Sure, I could buy a superb $19K SP Tech Revelation or Zu Definition or Coincident Total Reference, but what about the sound-staging and imaging? Surely I'm not the only person with this dilemma, yet there are so few posts on A'gon regarding this issue, that I wonder whether the problem is exaggerated in my mind or is it just that most A'goners are smarter than I and designed their wives' furniture choices better?:) Room treatments dont help much, or do they? Is there any solution, other than moving the whole sytem to a wifeless room? Please dont ask why these space restrictions apply - believe me, they do, and the interior decorating details are not relevant here.
System: EMM CDSD, DCC2, Sota Cosmos IV, Ear 324 Phono Preamp, Atma-Sphere MP-1, Atma-Sphere MA 2.2, PAD Dominus S/C, etc.
springbok10
springbok10 OP
711 posts
 
Pavpet, just looked them up - great reviews. Is there anything in their design, Duke, that would make them better for proximity to the walls? They are 8 ohm impedance, which is a plus. I'm sure SP Tech would also sound "great" close to walls - but better away from them. Wouldn't the same principle apply to the Tetras? The price isn't listed on the website, Pavpet. Can you let me know, by e-mail, if you prefer. Thanks again for the suggestion.
electroid
283 posts
 
I'm one that feels speakers sound poorly when too close to side walls. There's no room to get image cues from the outside of the speakers. That's a limiter to me. I realize you can't change the room.

ET
gsm18439
895 posts
 
There are speakers that are designed to be placed against the walls - deliberately. Audio Note. Guru. Older Linn designs.
shiva
181 posts
 
They are a bit dated but the NHT 3.3 are designed to be placed against the front wall. I believe there is a pair on this site to check out.
audiokinesis
2,724 posts
 
Springbok10, there are tradeoffs both ways but overall a dipole would not be my choice for your speaker placement. You'd have a strong early-arriving reflection off the wall behind the speaker, and that tends to be detrimental to clarity (as well as to imaging and timbre). These detrimental effects are psychoacoustic functions of how our ear/brain system processes sound, so they aren't really affected by speaker quality. I'd be willing to bet those dipole Tetras would sound significantly better pulled out into the room several feet farther, to a more psychoacoustically-friendly location for a dipole.

If a dipole has to be placed close to the front wall, I recommend either diffusing or absorbing the backwave (which works best depends on the room's acoustics).

Duke
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