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
mlsstl
1,436 posts
 
I'm another Ohm Walsh fan.   

I haven't seen this mentioned in this thread, but when I go to live music performances, I rarely sit in the same spot. One gets a slightly different perspective when in different areas of the venue. That is one thing I really like about my Ohms -- as I move to different spots in the room, the perspective changes, but it does so naturally. Unlike speakers with a very tight sweet spot where the sound quality suffers radically when you move out of the "dentist's chair", I find the Ohms give me an enjoyable -- and natural -- listening experience no matter where I am sitting, standing, or even moving around as I listen.  It has become one of the favorite traits of my current system.
aewarren
644 posts
 
Your choice of audio gear plus your speakers and their placement in your room determine the size of the sweet spot. But even a wide sweet spot has a sweeter spot within it. A sweet spot so narrow that the listener is afraid to move an inch is not my cup of tea, but to each his own. A wide-dispersion set-up can be problematic as well, especially as pertains to imaging. As has been said, "Variety is the spice of life."
tazz2
6 posts
 
Erik, your description is spot accurate...I'm not familiar with Magico's but 
my Revels 206's or M20's do exactly as you've described. The reason might be because Revel works so hard at off-axis response accuracy, reasonable to me, but don't know for sure. I only know images stay fixed and focused across the soundstage sitting anywhere from speaker to speaker.
erik_squires OP
16,056 posts
 
Duke / @audiokinesis Does a very good job above of summarizing the reasons why, @tazz2
audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
2,018 posts
 
I listen by myself! No one else even cares in this household...they think I’m nuts! Any how, all I need is my one and only sweet spot on my comfy sectional leather couch with many many throws and toss pillows etc. I’m fine with this. Its the same spot I sit in when watching a movie in surround sound. Everyone knows my spot! 👍
The wife, however, has stolen (I mean claimed) the recliner section of the sectional nearest my hifi. That’s where I sit to listen to headphones...😡...well, I guess I can't be in two spots at same time...but she is seemingly always there when I want to listen to my headphones...🥺
More to discover