Do Bigger Speakers Mean a Bigger Window?

Small speakers (in a car or on a desktop) can be wonderful on voices. I actually heard the best imaging on a car stereo (an Alfasud in Wembley). There was an uncanny spread of image across the front two seats. Sure there was little real bandwidth but the image was astonishing, I never forgot.

Isn't it the case that with small speakers you hear more of the speaker because of the greater direct sound compared to reflection ratio?  If so then I guess with larger speakers you hear more of the room because of the way the speaker drives the room and the reflected sound.

Of course there's also volume, seating distance, loudspeaker dispersion characteristics, people's hearing characteristics etc to also consider. In fact the science of acoustics seems so complicated that I'm wondering if anyone understands it completely.

Right now listening to a BBC podcast via the Logitech's (Dell branded) the voices do sound pretty life-like. On larger speakers they might sound exaggerated and larger than life.

@cd318   In my experience you don't need big speakers for a large size image.  My Treo CTs are modest in size compared to many floorstanders but they can envelop the front of my listening room in sound.  Many "experiments" have been done where a small group of listeners will listen to what they think is a big floorstander in the room only to find out that they are empty boxes and that they've been listening to the stand mounted minis in the room!  Quite the ear-opening experience.  You correctly mention that there are many factors at play in any listening space.  If there is a science of acoustics it is subject to many, many variables.😮

Multiple woofers in a column have a time delay.

Assume 3 woofers spaced 12" apart at 1, 2 & 3 feet from floor, a 15 foot listening distance and a 4 foot ear height. Relative to the direct wave from w1, @ 350Hz w2 ≈11° and w3 ≈30° of phase shift.

From the floor, w1 ≈177°, w2 ≈106° and w3 ≈47° phase shift for the 45° wave from the woofer.

Please explain how the laws of physics have been defeated by speaker stands.

When a speaker is on a stand, it is closer to a point source than is a large box.

@hifiman5  yes you are correct about small speakers. Me and a couple of friends were at a London show where the new B&W 601s (at least I remember it being the 601s, it would be surreal if they were the 301s). They were being played on the back of an Arcam amp and Digital tuner.

The three of us just could not get over how big they sounded for bookshelves mounted on chrome stands! The image was simply huge and although its possible that the bandwidth wasn't all that great but for the size of them we were left open mouthed.

The room was also huge (width, length and height) and open so the sounds were even more impressive. There is definitely a visual factor at work regarding his we perceive sound.

By bigger window,  I assume that you mean soundstage?  If that is the case, no,  bigger speakers can do a lot, but typically the soundstage is a function of how the speakers are set in the room. Spacing apart, distance from ear etc.  If a smaller speaker and a larger speaker both have similar time alignment and phasing in the speakers array, then both will produce a similar soundstage.  How well they can do many other things is a different story, but for merely soundstage, that comes from proper placement.