Floorstanders with a large sweetspot

>05-09-12: Hornguys
>IMO, there is no such thing as a wide sweet spot.

Sure there is.

With well-behaved polar response you can have correct timbre anywhere in a room and imaging that doesn't require vise-like head positioning although with broader polar response images will shift towards the nearer speaker as you move off-axis.

With higher-directivity (acoustically small dipoles, wave guides, or horns) that's also uniform you can also have a decent sound stage with centrally located center images for several seats (like a three cushion couch) by leveraging the off-axis roll-off so that seating positions farther off center that are closer to one speaker have lower amplitude sound by crossing the speaker's axis somewhere in front of the listeners.

>05-10-12: Andrejb
Looking to place the speakers about 5-10 inches from the rear wall and 1-2 feet from the side walls. As far as the sweetspot goes, I would like something more than just a single seat on a couch.

You'll do better with speakers designed for in-wall use.

Get something which has a real speaker enclosure (flexing dry wall would be bad for the sound) and run a three-way with a small midrange driver.

Triad has some nice designs and will color match the grills to the edcor.

>05-10-12: Jdoris
Hornguys: Do you think speakers vary as to whether they give a more or less satisfying listening experience off axis, or are they all they same, regards the decline in litening quality as one moves from the "sweet spot"?

They vary radically based on the driver sizes, locations, and cross-over points although to get those positive differences you'll need to get away from conventional cone and dome 2-ways.

>05-11-12: Mapman
>"As a devotee for years of First Order Crossovers because of the phase correct delivery, I overlooked the directionality that they impart."
>
>Lrsky, why is a first order crossover more directional?

Excursion to produce a given SPL quadruples with each octave lower you play while a first order cross-over only halves output with each octave out of the pass band so excursion is still doubling in the higher frequency driver with each octave lower for a given program SPL level until the high-pass ceases to have a first order slope.

This forces a higher cross-over point where the lower frequency driver is more directional.

The larger frequency range of overlap between drivers covering adjacent parts of the frequency spectrum with appreciable output also causes more lobing in the vertical polar response.