Planars/ Electrostats benefits over box speakers?

"As fine a loudspeaker as both companies make, the instruments and voices coming out of them sounded 1- Severely miniaturized, much smaller than in life and to the full size images coming from even the modestly-priced .7's. And 2- I found myself looking down on the performers, the sound of instruments and voices being about three feet off the floor."

You can deal with those issues without having to get a panel. With proper equipment matching, you can make images/scale just as big.

Not with Vandersteens or the smaller Wilsons, in my experience. The big Wilsons are a different story, for those who can afford them. But for five or ten thousand, panels rule!

"06-08-15: Bdp24
Not with Vandersteens or the smaller Wilsons, in my experience. The big Wilsons are a different story, for those who can afford them. But for five or ten thousand, panels rule!"

You're right in that I didn't use Wilson or Vandersteen, I did it with a pair of mid 90's Mission floor standers that retailed for around $1000. The images I got were so big it wasn't believable. I didn't really care for the overall sound. My point was that it can be done without panels if you know how to match your gear for that type of result,

The interaction between speaker and room can effect apparent image size. But the components upstream of the speakers? I can see how they could make things smaller, but the speaker is the final arbitrator. The sound is being squeezed through those drivers the same no matter what signal they are fed. If a speaker sounds "small", nothing upstream can change that characteristic of the speaker, I don't believe.

"The sound is being squeezed through those drivers the same no matter what signal they are fed"

This IMO is not true. I have found that with proper electronics a conventional speaker can put out a huge (to the ceiling 8,10,12ft) presentation or soundstage. With the wrong electronics you will never hear this, the sound will be just barely above the speaker or worse down near the floor! So thanks, but keep your "door panels" and I'll stay married with my "square speakers". O and of the 40 or so speaker manufactures that produce 100k to 250k systems almost none (and except Martin Logan) use electrostats??? hmmmm.