If you don't have a wide sweet spot, are you really an audiophile?


Hi, it’s me, professional audio troll. I’ve been thinking about something as my new home listening room comes together:

The glory of having a wide sweet spot.

We focus far too much on the dentist chair type of listener experience. A sound which is truly superb only in one location. Then we try to optimize everything exactly in that virtual shoebox we keep our heads in. How many of us look for and optimize our listening experience to have a wide sweet spot instead?

I am reminded of listening to the Magico S1 Mk II speakers. While not flawless one thing they do exceptionally well is, in a good room, provide a very good, stable stereo image across almost any reasonable listening location. Revel’s also do this. There’s no sudden feeling of the image clicking when you are exactly equidistant from the two speakers. The image is good and very stable. Even directly in front of one speaker you can still get a sense of what is in the center and opposite sides. You don’t really notice a loss of focus when off axis like you can in so many setups.

Compare and contrast this with the opposite extreme, Sanders' ESL’s, which are OK off axis but when you are sitting in the right spot you suddenly feel like you are wearing headphones. The situation is very binary. You are either in the sweet spot or you are not.

From now on I’m declaring that I’m going all-in on wide-sweet spot listening. Being able to relax on one side of the couch or another, or meander around the house while enjoying great sounding music is a luxury we should all attempt to recreate.
erik_squires
My thought on the post is along the same line as @mlsstl noting that at a Live 'unconstrained - varied' venue ambience with psycho acoustic space
input presents much for the overall enjoyment as does HiFi Playback (to a degree-extent being discussed).
Some of my best HiFi moments have been outside of a 'limited sweet spot).
Perspective also comes into play IMO (as being notable).
Headphones may not be the best comparison for many spatial cues.
One of my most memorable 'Listening Events' at RMAF was a Presentation of a Remastered (ATT) DSotM in Quad on R2R Tape Playback. 
With the listening position being 5-7 seats across by 8-10 deep (approximate) and my relative position being L Front Row.
I believe everyone there appreciated and enjoyed the experience. 
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I gather you’re not handed the same, specific seat that says "Reserved to Mr./Ms. [insert name]" as the one and only place to have a proper concert experience, in fact there’s a range seats centered to the stage that will be quite excellent sound-wise.
Actually, our seats are reserved. Took me three years to get them. I've paid stupid money for good seats in the great halls. If we can't get great seats, we don't go.

you could easily move your head about a foot ... it’s hardly relevant with regard to any changes in sound
In my retirement, I'm technical director for a production company. For acoustic music, mostly true. For amplified, not necessarily. Before I became TD, we've moved seats because the phasing of the direct and amplified sound was intolerable.

you’re projecting the head-in-vise experience from your home set-up
Hardly. I attended and played in live concerts before I had a HiFi. As a retired recording engineer, I spent thousands upon thousands of hours trying to recreate as close a facsimile to a live venue as possible. My HiFi is not head in a vice, but it accurately presents what a recording engineer put down. Most people have never heard a HiFi do that. For 40 years, musicians have been telling me that the music is "Right THERE!!"

No domestic set-up I’ve heard has come even fairly close to resembling a live acoustic concert.
Me neither. No one no how ever got the sound through the glass.  However, a well setup system can transport you and make you believe. If Joe Pass is playing a 10 x 5 foot guitar, no one is ever going to even consider him even in the same room.

A surplus in mage specificity, to a certain point, takes away from the holistic experience of music and in turn makes it more about something that’s supposed to impress sonically rather than musically, but that’s also about frequency response and the target curve at play.
There can never be a surplus in image specificity. If one can localize the source, it's a fatal flaw. Frequency response beyond a certain point is irrelevant. Imaging is about PHASE and TIME. Most systems are appalling on those parameters.

Isn’t this the audiophile tendency to miss the forest for the  trees? Just sit down and enjoy the damn music.
Hardly. IMO, more artist are hindered than helped by sound reinforcement. People may not realize why they didn't groove on a favorite artist.

you still get to experience the totality of the event, something your home set-up can’t recreate
One recent visitor, a lifelong classical musician, lover of most music and frequent concert goer, seated next to her hubby & neither with their head in a vice, upon hearing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" queried "Who needs concerts?" 
I think those who cavalierly toss the "high end audio gear" salad around and garnish it with Audiophile dressing like to talk shop to each other but not really seek best solutions. Klipsch Cinema systems have been doing this for a LONG time and generally have at least 104db efficiency and are capable of providing stereo sound in a huge sweet spot. Of course these Klipsch systems don't come with Audiogon bragging rights. All they come with is superb and superior sound quality and high efficiency.
  So, how long did it take you to figure this out besides way to long?
 
Darned right ieales." There can never be a surplus in image specificity. If one can localize the source, it's a fatal flaw. Frequency response beyond a certain point is irrelevant. Imaging is about PHASE and TIME. Most systems are appalling on those parameters. "
  I bet hardly any Audiogon commenters set things up with DSP and bi or tri amping and have no clue.