Is it possible to have Good Imaging close to wall

Mapman: I have heard Avantgarde two times at audio events, not in my room. The first was bad and not properly adjusted I think. The second was great, all my preconceptions about horns just fell flat. So I don't know, these may work even better in your context, than Audiokinesis speakers. But for me, in my context, I like these speakers better, they are not so totally horny if you forgive a phrase, there is more conventional driver action, which I like. They are more mainstream so to speak. So I feel no need to change.

Avantgarde speakers is another example of speakers that very often sound bad
at shows. One would not expect this to be the case, as by design the sound they
produce should be affected less by the room (unlike in the MBLs). However,
audio dealers are "resourceful" (at least in the Netherlands) and they
manage to find so many ways to screw up the sound of a system.

With the right settings for the crossover and when driven with appropriate
electronics they will put out a large and realistic sound-stage. This even when
placed right against the wall. If, however, one is driving them with Bryston
power amps (like the dutch importer does) that tends to happen less often.

In the last 2 years there were only bad demos with different horn loudspeakers in the Netherlands during shows.

The rooms are not that good. But I still think that the knowledge of the people who sell it is not good enough.

Often they are not music lovers. The music they use is not the music they love. But they use it because they think it gives them a good demo.

At shows there need to be more told about music and artists. I want live music and I want to talk about it.

Excellent thread! Thanks guys.

I also am an MBL lover. Heard them the past two years at RMAF. MBL 101's are still the best sounding speakers I have heard, in my oppinion, to my ears, for my tastes. It's the only set-up I've heard that rivals the Funktion One set-up at Beta Nightclub in terms of dynamics.

This thread got me thinking about speaker placement again. I prefer my speakers to be pulled out as far as possible from the wall behind them because it makes the soundstage deeper in my experience, but for some reason, I didn't appy that logic to side wall distances. I felt like my soundstage is wider the further apart the speakers are but I'll be revisiting that theory of mine. Maybe I can get a wider soundstage if I pull them away from the sidewalls a little more... Room is 11x13 fyi.

B_limo,

With my OHM omni's, speaker distance apart has little effect on soundstage width. It is wall to wall, about 20" total even if speakers are just a few feet apart. My room is L shaped with the OHM's sitting at the base of the L firing into the long dimension, which is narrow. Omnis are are a perfect fit there. I had Maggies there prior and could never get them to work as well as I knew they could from prior experience with them in other rooms.

Achieving soundstage depth is the biggest challenge in this room as with most in that having speakers too far out from rear wall is a practical problem in many cases, but the OHMs do a good job even with just enough distance from rear wall to avoid early reflections. I like the distance the reflected sound travels to be about 2X that of the direct, to the extent possible, for best results.

A large room, wide and deep, with lots of space behind, does help not only with enabling a large soundstage, but also helps our ears to be able to triangulate on sound locations within the soundstage better and with more detail, ie perceive imaging within the soudstage accurately. Our 2 ears and two eyes work similarly in this way in terms of being able to see or hear in "stereo" and being able to locate things spatially in three dimensions.

Generally, you will want more room behind the speakers to work well with more space between. WHen speakers move closer to rear wall, less space may be best between speakers as well. It's mostly about getting the right distribution, balance, and magnitude of direct and reflected sound from the two stereo speakers at the listening location or locations.

An excellent tweak otherwise would be to move one's ears further apart somehow. Not likely to happen though, so lots of open 3-D space for the speakers to image in is your friend in general otherwise.

Things work similarly in smaller rooms, but on a smaller scale. Its like having a 15" TV versus a 70" big screen in essence. If set up right including listening position, similar good things can still happen, just on a smaller scale.

I find omni's overall to be easier to setup for good overall results than more directional designs, though fine tuning for absolute best results is still needed as well.

At my reference mbl demo behavior appeared similar ie distance to rear wall was the key as long as early reflections from side wall were not in play.

That room was also heavily treated with curtains and other soft absorbent materials, which were absent at show demos with lesser results. Also the room area behind the mbls was tapered, not rectangu;lar, much like a musical instrument, probably to minimize resonances.

If I had a room like that, I think there is a chance my OHMs could probably challenge the mbls for soundstage depth and maybe even beat them in most every other way, but I may never know for sure.

My big OHMs ended up costing me about $2500 a couple years back, with sale price at the time and maximum trade-in value (40%) applied. They go for about $6500 brand spanking new these days, less if OHM Walsh CLS driver "can" is mounted in older refurbed cabinets, like mine, which are refurbed OHM F cabinets that could be a good 30-40 years old by now.

Dynamics are top notch as well. I do not feel wanting after a good horn speaker demo when I come home.

The big mbl 101s may be the boss in terms of bass output potential and dynamics there though. THe mbls I heard were "only" 111e's. Have never had the pleasure of hearing 101s.

TO challenge bass output from 101s perhaps, OHM now has a 5015 model with powered subs integrated into the cabinets for about $10K. I would love to hear a shootout between those and mbl 101s each set up optimally.