Magico - Wide vs. Narrow

@erik_squires , imo the width of the Snell Type A helps the rear-firing tweeter to work well even when the speaker is up against the wall, assuming the wall is not absorptive.

Imo rear-firing tweeters need some reflection path length, but not nearly as much as a fullrange dipole because the rear-firing tweeter’s output is limited to short wavelengths. As the wavelengths get shorter, the reflection path length we can get away with also becomes shorter.

The sheer width of the Type A’s cabinet gives us good path length for the rear-firing tweeter, and the geometry becomes that of a slot all around the tweeter which tends to direct its output up and to the sides. So the rear-firing tweeter’s output arrives late enough that it doesn’t degrade the clarity, but it does improve the spectral balance of the reflection field, which (among other things) contributes to "being able to hear the recorded space", in my opinion.

I don’t think there was anything about Peter Snell’s Type A that wasn’t incredibly well thought-out.

Duke

@audiokinesis  - That's an interesting POV.  I would have thought that the slot would act like a severe low pass filter.

Great discussion.great minds of decades of audio experiences.thanks all for your contribution and continue to build equipment that makes us smile.enjoy the music.it actually  helps stroke patients to rehab.

I owned & really enjoyed the Snell A- III’s back in the earlier 80’s & they were excellent in many ways. Amongst many other things, they used only average quality ( for the day) drivers that they carefully individually tested to ensure very close tolerances to their specs & matched them in each speaker pair. They tossed the ones that didn’t cut it. I woulnd up selling them for Proac EBS’s which was their top of the line then. The Proac’s had considerably better midrange & high end & utilized very good quality drivers ( famous ATC dome midrange still considered excellent today) & a good Scanspeak tweeter. The woofer was a 10 inch ATC & the bass was good but the Snells bested them in this area. The Proac’s imaged better & had relatively narrow cabinets that in often typical British fashion for the day, did not have the most stout cabinets. 

@jonwolfpell - Very interesting perspective.  I'm curious about one thing though.  Did you find a difference in imaging?  Would you say either speaker had a wider sweet spot?