Omnidirectional speakers. The future?

Hi all again - I'll be heading out for the weekend so this is my last post for now:

re: Sean - I started a new thread on DBX expanders so as not to drag this one OT with that stuff.

re: Audiokinesis - What you say about mic location is very true, and it has a huge impact on the success of a recording as far as I'm concerned - but that's a whole other topic, too.

The anechoic chamber or overdamped room probably sounds dull because of some or all of these reasons:
-It's not what we're used to.
-You can actually hear how IMPERFECT even a great recording played back on high quality equipment really is compared to the original!
-Room generated Reverb is fun.
-We expect it to be dull - the placebo effect.
-In a properly set-up room we are actually relying on/using wall interactions to cancel out the fact that your right ear is hearing the left channel output, and your left ear is hearing the Right channel, etc. - which dramatically reduces the stereo effect. (It might be interesting to hear a perfectly set up Carver Sonic Holography unit in anechoic chamber. Don't worry, I wouldn't use one at home.)

So, yes, I do hold that all interactions are colorations of what was recorded. But indeed we all may want those colorations because they sound better than not having them by bringing back some of that "liveliness" which was lost in the reproduction process.

re: Holzhauer - I don't have anything at all against omni-directional speakers if that is what somebody likes. My only "objection" when I started posting here was really the quasi-science which is so profusely expounded by the speaker builders/marketers and then absorbed as fact by audiophiles.

I have owned 3 pairs of Ohm/Walsh (with and without the dampening material inside the can) and have had friends with planars (quad/maggie/X-static/ML), which I enjoy but wouldn't want for myself.

As came up in Audiokinesis post - I suppose we do need and enjoy some amount of room interaction, but anyway I look at it - the more interaction the more "distortion" from the original. My experience (for my particular taste) is that the amount thrown off by an omni- is too much, in too many ways, to control properly so that I get the sound that I enjoy, which is very precise imaging with very minimal coloration. I'm going nuts right now just trying to tame the rear wave from a pair of Alon V's to direct and reduce the rear wall bounce.

I haven't heard Shahinians and am always open.

Opalchip: your comment of "the sound that I enjoy, which is very precise imaging with very minimal coloration" pretty much sums things up. That is, omni's / bipolar's / dipolar's, etc... are all going to produce an image that is more vague than a focused field type of speaker radiation pattern. As far as colouration goes, individual speaker placements, individual room acoustics and individual sonic preferences are going to dictate what is or isn't acceptable to us as individuals.

Personally, i've got multiple different types of speakers in various systems and enjoy them all. Time aligned mini-monitors with dual down-firing subs in the bedroom, large 5 driver 4 way towers as the mains and surrounds in my HT system, a line array of electrostatic tweeters / stacked electrostatic mid panels / multiple dipolar push-pull dynamic woofers in my main system, very large horns in my basement system and omni's in my office system. They all have their good and bad points, but that's what makes them all "special". As i've posted in another thread and if i had to choose between them all, the one set that i would keep would be my Ohm F's. As such, we are obviously on opposite sides of the coin in terms of what we find to be "important" to us in terms of the type of presentation that we enjoy. That doesn't mean that we can't be friends or share a love of music though : ) Sean
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Talk about a coincidence. The speakers in my bedroom system i.e. the time aligned mini-monitors, are very similar to the little Sequerra Pyramids. As mentioned, these are supplemented by two down-firing subs. That system is actively crossed and multi-amped. Sean
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Living in Moscow, I have the luxury of being able to go to a lot of concerts for litte money, especially classical music. My favourite venue is the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoty, which is as beautiful as it offers outstanding acoustics. I go to jazz clubs, and rock concerts, too. Besides of that, Moscow has become a heaven for high end-nuts, as you can go and listen to any high end-speaker imaginable, which I have done often. Having said that, I found that omnidirectional speakers (in my case Diapasons as well) - if well executed, and coupled with good room acoostics, such as dampaning the wall behind the speakers - give me by far the most convincing memory of what the music in the real venue sounds like. I have had quite a few die-hard direct-sound only guys coming over to my place, leaving as converts for omnis.
May I ask one again, then: Did ayone here compare Shahinia and Ohm speakers?