Speakers that sound great in terrible rooms

Duke and heaudio both make good points. But without hijacking this thread I will simply say that there are some folks (including me) that find omnidirectional speakers better mimic the music we prefer in the venues we typically listen live. I listen mostly to acoustic music; jazz, classical and small venue recordings. I don't find that typical unidirectional dynamic drivers do as good a job of reproducing complex music and full dynamic range as do omnis. Different strokes.

But I do agree with Duke's point about good/vs bad rooms: most rooms are not universally bad but are just bad for the specific speaker/design, speaker position, listening position and volume level from which you want to listen.

@br3098 wrote: "omnidirectional speakers better mimic the music we prefer in the venues we typically listen live."

I get it! Good omnis have very rich timbre and convey a wonderful sense of spaciousness, especially when they have a bit of breathing room.

The omni and quasi-omni formats are already being done and done well; I see no window of opportunity for me to offer any worthwhile net improvements. This is one of the reasons why I’m barking up different trees.

"I don’t find that typical unidirectional dynamic drivers do as good a job of reproducing complex music... as do omnis."

Agreed!

Floyd Toole fell in love with the quasi-omni (technically "bipolar") Mirage M1 many years ago. Like you, he finds that a well energized, spectrally-correct reverberant field actually enhances the clarity of complex music. This is somewhat counter-intuitive, but it has has been my experience as well. Toole theorizes that the ear is better able to decipher complex music signals when it is given "multiple looks" via multiple spectrally-correct reflections.

I was pleasantly surprised when my first bipolar speaker design had noticeably better clarity than its monopole counterpart, which used the same drivers and essentially the same crossover.

Regarding dynamics, imo that is something a good narrow-pattern horn speaker does well, and not just because of its lack of thermal compression. You see, dynamic range is partially a function of how loud the in-room "noise floor" is relative to the direct sound. To the extent that the reverberant energy in the room constitutes a masking "noise floor", it can reduce the effective dynamic range. So imo there’s some juggling of tradeoffs involved in this area when it comes to radiation pattern width. Or, as you far more succinctly put it:

"Different strokes."

Duke

 

a well energized, spectrally-correct reverberant field actually enhances the clarity of complex music

That's it exactly.

Toole theorizes that the ear is better able to decipher complex music signals when it is given "multiple looks" via multiple spectrally-correct reflections.

This is the best explanation I’ve heard, and is probably similar to cupping your ears.

Also why having a diffusor in the middle of the wall behind the speakers seems to have caught on.

Heaudio123 wrote: " I would argue that unless the speaker has poor/uneven off-axis response, then it is the room..."

Totally agree!!

Heaudio123: "...and I don’t agree with your argument about Omnidirectionals amplifying room irregularity, as they actually have the opposite effect."

My wording was obviously poor; I am NOT arguing that omnis amplify room irregularities! Quite the opposite in fact. Here is what I should have said:

IF room irregularity was the problem THEN omnis would be a bad choice for "problematic" rooms; but omnis are clearly NOT a bad choice for such rooms, thus we can conclude that room irregularity is not the problem.

(In terms of syllogistic logic, my argument takes this form: "If A then B; not B, therefore not A".)

Having hopefully cleared up the above-mentioned poor communication on my part, I agree with pretty much everything else you have posted in this thread. In particular you mentioned line source speakers... ime the 45-degree-pattern SoundLab fullrange electrostats work extremely well in problematic rooms, given sufficient distance to the wall behind them.

Duke