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Distance between speakers - are the physics what they are?

In now spending so much time in my kitchen it dawned on me that it would be a great space to set up some older components I had in storage.  It's great now having music in the kitchen but wish the speaker soundstage could be better.  The set up is using a pair of stand-mounted B&W 600 S3, which are "fine" but no doubt there are other similarly sized speakers that could perform better.  However. with the wall space I have to work with, distance between the any speakers would be, from tweeter to tweeter, about 3.5 feet.

Is not being able to put more distance between the speakers mean any upgrade would be a waste since the physics would prevent them from ever sounding as good as they should?
kba_8040
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,981 posts
 
With that limitation on setup, you would probably get better results with speakers that have very wide dispersion pattern.

A pair of small Ohm Microwalsh which are largely omnidirectional would fit and might be worth a try.


http://www.audioreview.com/product/speakers/floorstanding-speakers/ohm/microwalsh-talls.html

andy2
1,588 posts
 
like buying a sports car but never being able to drive more than 30 MPH?
I think you may have answered your own question.  A distance of only 3.5 feet is too much of a bottleneck for any system.


simao's avatar
simao
1,932 posts
 
I see you have a turntable. Can you just extend speaker wire (carefully kept in place on along molding) and place whichever small speakers you end up having on wall mounts?
kba_8040 OP
10 posts
 
Thanks everyone for the responses.  Wall mounts are not an option so I'll either just live with what the space can provide (directing any upgrade effort toward the primary system in my listening room) or look into wide dispersion speakers (a good suggestion, I have never looked into these before).  Thanks again!
erik_squires
16,901 posts
 
What you need for cramped speakers is good dispersion control. Check out the Hsu monitors or the JBL powered monitors. Both relatively small, horn loaded tweets.
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