Magico - Wide vs. Narrow

@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?

If I recall correctly, the Snells had an overall bigger soundstage w/ a wider sweet spot but the Proacs had better image specificity & depth. To be fare though, the room I had the Snells in before I switched to the Proac did not allow me to pull them away from the front wall sufficiently, only about 2 feet & & they probably would have liked a bit more. Also I had a Conrad Johnson Premier Four  power amp that put out a real 100 watts / side w/ 4 EL 34 power tubes / side & w/ the low sensitivity of the Snells, they probably could have used more  as I liked to play them loudly. 

i once had the opportunity to borrow a friends amazing Jadis preamp which at the time was amongst the very best available. The combo of it , the CJ & the Proacs taught what real imaging was all about w/ space & air around & in between different instruments & voices in a beautiful unified whole. Not many systems that I’ve heard since could do this as well. 
 

The American peer group of speakers at that time Thiel, Vandersteen, Snell, Dunlavey all delivered excellent sound w value drivers and certainly different design principles… A wide sweet spot is by definition lossy. Probably should widen out my list of RIP for the various genius no longer with us. 

oopppps.. left out Jon D and the DQ-10

A wide sweet spot is by definition lossy.

l think a lot more goes into that, and even if lossy, often highly desirable by most music lovers, if not necessarily by audiophiles entranced by imaging.