[Audio Empire]

On Thu, 10 May 2012 06:10:57 -0700, Peter Wieck wrote
(in article ):

OPINION (typical rant removed): I find the concept of a tiny sweet
spot as antithetical to the listening experience and about the
furthest thing from duplicating a live setting as is possible (except
for headphones). If I *must* keep my ears within a 12"/31cm cube in
order to realize the best possible performance from my speakers - that
is simply nuts.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

AR3a
Maggie MG-III
Revox Piccolo
ARM5
AR14
AR Athena
Dynaco A25

While I agree with you in theory, the reality is that the "sweet spot"
concept is part of the baggage that stereo recording methodology carries with
it. I've mentioned this before, but it doesn't hurt to reiterate:

When you are at a live, unamplified concert, and you move around with respect
the stage (or other locus of performance) your ears go with you and your
perspective changes with location. When listening to a recording, and you
move around the room, your surrogate ears, the microphones, and ultimately,
(in the case of multi-miked, multi-channel recordings) the final mix has one
set perspective because the "mikes" DON'T move. That being the case, there
is only ONE set place where the perspective is correct, IOW, there is only
one place in front of the speakers (right to left) where the listener is on
the same axis as the surrogate ears. Naturally, this is the place where the
imaging and soundstage snap into sharp focus. If you aren't in that spot, you
still hear a sound-field, but the focus will be gone. An analogy would be a
3-D visual image. As you move the right-eye image and the left-eye image
closer together and further apart, there is only one relative position where
these two images coalesce in your mind as a single 3-D image (assuming, of
course, you are wearing the glasses) with depth as well as height and width.
That's because your surrogate eyes are a pair of lenses on a camera that are
a set distance apart. That means that when viewing those images they must
give the illusion of being the same distance apart to your brain, or you
won't see the stereo effect - with or without the glasses.