Ears hurt when listening after changing speakers

" The new speakers have a wider dispersion. "

Imo there may well be a correlation between WHERE the dispersion is wide and WHAT lourdes is hearing.

According to Stereophile's measurements, the Rockports are dead flat on-axis.  This means they inevitably have excess off-axis energy at the bottom end of the tweeter's range, and sure enough, we see an off-axis energy flare around 3 kHz, accompanied by a corresponding bump in the in-room response in that region.  

Duke

Teo wrote: "reduction in spl vs seating distance is almost perfectly linear with panel speakers and is almost exponential with point source speakers."

Cleeds asked: "Huh? How can that possibly be? Have you actually measured this?"

Intensity (in this case sound pressure level) falls off by 6 dB for each doubling of distance from a point source, and by 3 dB for each doubling of distance from a line source. I’ve measured it, but that was many years ago and I don’t have those measurements in front of me.

(In fact, one of the challenges with a hybrid system like the Martin Logans arises from the fact that the panel is approximating a line source while the woofer is approximating a point source, so the spectral balance changes with distance.  Room reflections mitigate the discrepancy somewhat, but in my experience it is still measurable and audible.)

That being said, I doubt this is a significant factor in what lourdes is describing.

Duke