"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 31 May 2012 11:05:01 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
The biggest problem with this is that while the listener can partially
dereverberate the room, his ability to do so is limited. In many rooms
the many reflections from the omni speakers give you a real mess. Been
there, done that with Ohm F's. The second problem is that listeners
don't want to walk around speakers as a rule. They want to sit in
their favorite seat, so anything you invest or pay for that "walk
around" realism is lost and not appreciated. Most speakers are used in
suboptimal places in suboptimal rooms. This very much favors
directional speakers.
Hi Arn -
No, nothing I have been trying to relate favors directional speakers. We
talked about the spatial nature of speakers and rooms being audible, so that
if that characteristic is very different from live it will not, cannot,
sound the same.
Here is another paradigm for you to digest: Think of an experimenter who
wants to investigate this spatial business. He puts three omnidirectional
speakers on the stage of a concert hall, runs some pink noise thru them,
and records them. He gets back home and plays the recording on his "hi fi"
system with its highly directional speakers. But no matter how he equalizes
it, it just doesn't sound the same.
Comes the dawn, he realizes the problem. His live sound had a completely
different spatial pattern than his reproduction attempt at home. It couldn't
sound the same!
If you have a fairly dead listening room (not a bad idea), the best
you can say is that omni speakers are at least not a serious problem.
Speakers with controlled directivity will still sound at least as
good. Again, I've heard this comparison just lately and Gary knows
where. ;-)
Yes, and it's no big secret - it is part of public knowledge:
http://home.provide.net/~djcarlst/SLReport10.05.pdf
I would also direct your attention to Siegfried Linkwitz's listening room,
with its highly reflective front end. These properties were duplicated in
the test room, which was good, and which reinforced what I have been saying
for 30 years. The speakers were positioned as I have recommended as well.
Gary Eickmeier