2. speakers
  3. 164823-20253

If you don't have a wide sweet spot, are you really an audiophile?

Hi, it’s me, professional audio troll. I’ve been thinking about something as my new home listening room comes together:

The glory of having a wide sweet spot.

We focus far too much on the dentist chair type of listener experience. A sound which is truly superb only in one location. Then we try to optimize everything exactly in that virtual shoebox we keep our heads in. How many of us look for and optimize our listening experience to have a wide sweet spot instead?

I am reminded of listening to the Magico S1 Mk II speakers. While not flawless one thing they do exceptionally well is, in a good room, provide a very good, stable stereo image across almost any reasonable listening location. Revel’s also do this. There’s no sudden feeling of the image clicking when you are exactly equidistant from the two speakers. The image is good and very stable. Even directly in front of one speaker you can still get a sense of what is in the center and opposite sides. You don’t really notice a loss of focus when off axis like you can in so many setups.

Compare and contrast this with the opposite extreme, Sanders' ESL’s, which are OK off axis but when you are sitting in the right spot you suddenly feel like you are wearing headphones. The situation is very binary. You are either in the sweet spot or you are not.

From now on I’m declaring that I’m going all-in on wide-sweet spot listening. Being able to relax on one side of the couch or another, or meander around the house while enjoying great sounding music is a luxury we should all attempt to recreate.
erik_squires

Showing 1 response by musicfan2349

musicfan2349's avatar
musicfan2349
246 posts
 
Hmmm... When I sit in the narrow sweetspot that I have and really listen, I’m thinking that what I’m hearing is what the producer wanted me to hear when they mastered the recording with reference to sound stage. Whether the sonic picture is narrow or wide, the relative placement was chosen at the recording console. However, there are times when I’m not all that focused on placement. When is that? When the music is on as background.

Does that mean when I stand up or am in the kitchen suddenly I’m not someone’s idea of an "audiofile"? Perhaps. However timbre and SQ still matter: It’s still has to sound "right" even if I’m not in the optimal physical location for the stereo image. And therein perhaps lies "redemption". LOL The point I’m trying to make is that so much of this avocation is subjective if not downright arbitrary. For my part, I refuse to get wrapped around the proverbial axle due to someone’s pronouncement of what is "right".


Happy Listening.
More to discover