BEAR wrote:

Gary,

You seem to be having some difficulty with this! That picture was shot
in 1976. I repeat 1976. THREE decades ago. Archival, not modern. The
speaker was NOT in the corner, fwiw, the room was smallish and the
speaker was turned and moved to make a 'more pleasing photograph.' Not
that it matters.

You said you were getting rid of the reflecting variable. That means
speakers in the corners.

Furthermore, these are not reflecting speakers. So, your comments about
the placement in the room - other than room mode effects and room
surface reflections - makes no sense as far as the imaging. But since in
the real world there are interactions with the room surfaces, I would
agree that a larger room, and with speakers away from surfaces is
usually superior in terms of listening perception.

Are you still using Bose 901s today? Just curious.

Yes. http://www.pbase.com/eickmeier/image/712281

I don't know what this "Image Model Theory" is. But, since stereo is a
rather poor sample (best case two point samples) of the original
acoustic environment it's difficult for me to understand what exactly
one would be precisely 'modeling' per se...

I'd prefer to not get into a contentious discussion about this topic
( "**** holes in the snow" - are those point sources?) at this time.

Well, you asked...

What you are modeling is the characteristics of the original sound
field. That is the "thing" that we are reproducing. The original is
composed of a large model of direct (the instruments themselves), early
reflected (front and side wall reflections from the concert hall or
studio), and reverberant sounds. To reproduce that, you do NOT cast all
of the recorded sounds as a direct field from two point sources. You
place two or more speakers with a shaped radiation pattern out from the
reflecting surfaces so as to create a model of the original. This is the
most difficult to understand aspect of stereo theory, but it agrees with
majority audiophile practice.

You're right, we don't want to go into an entire discussion of this
here. Been there, done that, heard all of the arguments.

Read all about it at http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=5825

Gary Eickmeier