Prof - I'm out of touch with today's market, but there do seem to be plenty of very expensive speakers out there with knowledgeable folks wishing for better performance.
About the next room phenomenon - that addresses an open question in my mind. I don't know if the industry agrees about radiation patterns. I do know that we at Thiel decided in a technical vacuum that our speakers would act as a quasi point sources with the 30° off-axis radiation being as close as possible in power response to the on-axis response. Definsible guess.
I now understand from sound reinforcement that directionality is part of their formula, based on very sophisticated Green's Functions governing wave propagation through distance. I don't know what pattern is considered ideal or if home playback should follow the same rules. But I do know that from the beginning Thiel took some hits because our speakers had "too much" high frequency energy in the room. J. Gordon Holt, founder of Stereophile, is known to have commented when hearing Thiel 03s from the next room "it sounds great from here, but music doesn't sound like what we're hearing in there".
I do know that recording engineers differ widely regarding the playback conditions assumed in their mixing and mastering.
Unsound - on a related note, I just read the 2003 thread with your active participation that included lots of very lucid input from Roy Johnson of Green Mountain Audio. He alludes to adherence to the Green's Functions in his speakers, along with other very advanced assertions. Smart Guy. Their website seems to have truncated at 2011. Do you know how the Green Mountain products fared in the marketplace? Or what critical acclaim they got, or agreement that their limited dispersion formula was "right"? I would appreciate whatever you can share.
About the next room phenomenon - that addresses an open question in my mind. I don't know if the industry agrees about radiation patterns. I do know that we at Thiel decided in a technical vacuum that our speakers would act as a quasi point sources with the 30° off-axis radiation being as close as possible in power response to the on-axis response. Definsible guess.
I now understand from sound reinforcement that directionality is part of their formula, based on very sophisticated Green's Functions governing wave propagation through distance. I don't know what pattern is considered ideal or if home playback should follow the same rules. But I do know that from the beginning Thiel took some hits because our speakers had "too much" high frequency energy in the room. J. Gordon Holt, founder of Stereophile, is known to have commented when hearing Thiel 03s from the next room "it sounds great from here, but music doesn't sound like what we're hearing in there".
I do know that recording engineers differ widely regarding the playback conditions assumed in their mixing and mastering.
Unsound - on a related note, I just read the 2003 thread with your active participation that included lots of very lucid input from Roy Johnson of Green Mountain Audio. He alludes to adherence to the Green's Functions in his speakers, along with other very advanced assertions. Smart Guy. Their website seems to have truncated at 2011. Do you know how the Green Mountain products fared in the marketplace? Or what critical acclaim they got, or agreement that their limited dispersion formula was "right"? I would appreciate whatever you can share.