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narrow and wide baffles and imaging

According to all the "professional" audio reviews that I've read over the last several years, narrow baffles are crucial to creating that so-desired pin-point imaging.

However, over the last few weeks, I've had the opportunity to audition Harbeth 40.2, Spendor Classic 100, Audio Note AN-E, and Devore O/93.  None of these had deficient imaging; indeed I would go so far as to say that it was good to very good.

So, what gives?  I'm forced to conclude that modern designs, 95% of which espouse the narrow baffle, are driven by aesthetic/cosmetic considerations, rather than acoustical ones, and the baffle~imaging canard is just an ex post facto justification.

I can understand the desire to build speakers that fit into small rooms, are relatively unobtrusive, and might pass the SAF test, but it seems a bit much to add on the idea that they're essentially the only ones that will do imaging correctly.



128x128twoleftears
erik_squires
16,004 posts
 
Room acoustics matter a great deal, but I’ve read, and listened and I truly believe this:

Extra-wide baffle speakers are better able to convey a sense of the recording space compared to "normal" and "skinny" speakers in most rooms. My favorite example of this is the Sonus Faber Stradivari.

You can get more insight reading Troels Gravesen’s article on a "poor man’s strad" here:

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/PMS.htm

Besides that, one thing that bedevils a lot of speakers is baffle diffraction. This is not just the baffle width, but the height and the driver placement. For whatever reason, wide baffle speakers seem to cure a lot of it. 
twoleftears's avatar
twoleftears OP
5,314 posts
 
@prof  Hmmm.  In my auditioning of the 40.2's in a big room in which they could well and truly breathe, they both imaged and sound-staged extraordinarily well.  The Classic 100's in another set-up also did very well on both scores, to my mind.

@analogluvr I agree.  I mean, if it were as simple as narrow good, wide bad, why would these modern wide speakers perform as well as they do, even if they are not perhaps the equal of the absolute imaging champs.

@mindlessminion I think I'd have to say the 40.2's, though the Classic 100's were at a different place, in a different room, with totally different equipment.  Both very good indeed.  The Audio Note's had perhaps the greatest purity of sound, the highest truth-to-timbre, more like the live acoustic instruments than perhaps anything else I've ever heard.  But despite their claims to the contrary, I did think their positioning close to the front wall, as is traditional with them, did tend to foreshorten a little the soundstaging, and reduce a little the general airiness.  Of the four mentioned, I liked the Devore least, though they were fine. 
nutty
2,795 posts
 
+1 Totem Forest Signatures image very well. 

N
wolf_garcia
6,677 posts
 
I'm offended that tomic601 misspelled Richard Thompson.
helomech
1,634 posts
 
So, what gives? I’m forced to conclude that modern designs, 95% of which espouse the narrow baffle, are driven by aesthetic/cosmetic considerations, rather than acoustical ones, and the baffle~imaging canard is just an ex post facto justification.
That is certainly most of it. Those who claim otherwise haven’t heard a properly setup pair of SP100s that can completely disappear, unlike numerous "high end" towers. As for time and phase alignment being critical, that’s total hogwash - it's important for decay, not imaging.
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