Is Imaging Worth Chasing?

@paul6002  (what happened to @paul6001 ?)

I completely disagree with @mijostyn. Imaging is very easy. In fact, you already found out exactly how to get it,

It happens, every now and then. For some reason, I was once right up next to my speakers. Lots of direct sound, less reflections. “The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads” was playing. And I literally gave a start because David Byrne was standing on the coffee table. Cool.

All good imaging takes is two speakers, with somewhat flat response at the listener position, that are somewhat matched, forming a reasonable angle with the listener (~ 60 degrees is standard), and the most important, an environment free of any competing reflections. There is one other very important aspect. The music must have within it, the ability to be imaged.

By virtue of the age of the users here, most of the music listened to will have been mixed on what are comparatively, by today's and audiophile standards, pretty awful speakers. That was all done near field in the conditions I described above.

Where the trouble comes in is balancing imaging with a desire to use reflections to create some nice ambience in the sound, and doing that in a room that for most is not custom built and may be multi-purpose. It is all about controlling reflections. It really is not any more complicated than that, though doing that may be complicated. It is best to start with a speaker with a flat response and good, consistent off axis response. That will make the rest of the work easier.

If moving your hear drastically changes the image, something is wrong. Very wrong.

I assume you mean moving your head?  Wouldn't how sensitive the image is to moving your head be dependent on what information in the music is conveying the image?

@mijostyn ,

I cannot agree that simply using a microphone/DSP to make your speakers perfect match as you described will give you perfect imaging and/or that it can compensate for acoustic treatments and asymmetry.

Measuring in-room frequency response is of no value to imaging. This only tells you how much sound from each speaker gets to your head, not how much sound from each speaker gets to each ear. If you take it one step further and use a blocking method to attempt to determine what each ear is hearing, that will get you closer. A full measurement test would require both steady state that incorporates reflections in the response as well as an impulse frequency response measurement that looks at first arrival frequency response, but accuracy of this will tie back to speaker placement and room acoustics and the timing and levels of the reflections.

This all ties back to comments others have made that imaging is just one of many qualities that people assess for good sound. Two channel is a compromise. Making one thing better, imaging, can make something else worse, ambience and space. Specific to your assertion, making imaging better, by fixing early arrival frequency response may hurt overall tonality. You can't fix that with DSP. You can only fix that with acoustics which would include placement, and starting with a speaker better suited to the room or in general.

@thespeakerdude , Sorry, you are mistaken. Our hearing sense uses volume and phase relationships to locate sounds. Just twist your balance control and see what happens to a singer imaged to the center. If at any frequency one speaker is louder than the other the image is smeared to the louder side. It only takes a decibel to cause trouble. The only way you are ever going to know what your system is doing is to measure it. Then correct it and listen to what happens to image specificity and the background "blackness." 

Nothing I said negates this, however, simply placing a microphone at the listening position and measuring will not accomplish your stated goals for all the reasons I stated. That you have floor to ceiling panel speakers, a line array acoustically, will increase the accuracy of your measurement as it pertains to early arrival and single ear measurement. Unfortunately, the process you use is not transportable to most dynamic speakers in most rooms, but that does not make your panels superior for overall sound quality, just this aspect. Dynamic speaker line arrays can achieve the same result and even open baffle speakers can.

An analog crossover can be a detriment in a poor design that is overly sensitive to component variation due to mismatched frequency response. However that is also a factor of where the crossover frequencies are. Many two way horn speakers have crossover points below 1500Hz and will not suffer from crossover anomalies in frequency response at critical frequencies. With the low cost of high quality amplification now, active, preferably digital crossover makes far more sense though.

There is another page on the audiocheck site @rodman99999 that shows you left / right using level, time, and time, level and frequency response.  @paul6001 you asked "how it works", this is how:  https://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_stereophonicsound.php

Really important point hidden at the bottom of the page:

This now explains why the audio engineer only needs a pan pot on his console: from all the effects described here, only panning offers the highest compatibility with all existing sound reproduction systems, from monaural speakers to complex multi-channel installations, and through headphones.

I think the only thing missing here is that our brains place more importance on the first sounds that arrive. That is why it is important to get those reflections under control, and the level, like @mijostyn said, get the left / right matched, but don't confuse equal left and right speaker room responses for matched. What reaches the left and right ear from the left and right speakers must be matched.

@mijostyn systems that image are very common. Almost any near field system with good quality monitors will image very good if setup right, and with most of the market moving towards active monitors, left/right matching is near perfect. If near field systems did not image well, almost none of the music you have would as that is what was used to mix and master it.

@mijostyn I can't agree with you on line source provide better imaging in a well set up room. In a poorly setup room, I definitely see your point as it is much easier to control the direct/reflected energy ratio. That is even more true when looking at direct/early reflections, however, for a panel speaker, you do have the rear wave can be a problem.

Can you comment on the rooms where those particular speakers that you like were placed? The speaker placement, room, room treatments can be far more impactful on imaging than the speaker itself. An inexpensive speaker properly implemented will image better than a very good speaker poorly implemented.

@kota1 , I will repeat what I said in another topic where you trolled my post. Was not having your whole topic removed a good enough lesson on behavior?  It is rude to use a discussion for what now appears to be a vendetta.

@kota1  you posted, in a single topic, no less than 6 links to videos and articles that were either very questionable in content, or outright grossly wrong.  I would appreciate if you stopped your incessant inane attempts to discredit me and worry more about your own credibility.

Point source speakers require much more room treatment, horns are not as difficult. The best point source systems can image beautifully but they always produce a small image even sitting near field. I have never heard a point source system convince me that I am at a live performance, line arrays can.

The size of the image is limited by what is on the recording not by the speakers.

@kota1 ,

The size of the image is limited by what is on the recording not by the speakers.

This statement proves you don’t have a system, don’t have any speakers, and don’t have a clue. More arguing, more nonsense, more trolling. Speakers don't impact imaging? Like these two speakers will image the same? No.

Does your incessant attempts to discredit me make you feel better? Perhaps if you actually responded to anything I said and listened maybe you could reach an effective retort?

How these two speakers image will be dominated by room / speaker interaction which can be controlled.  If I DSP correct for flat response on axis on both and listen to them on axis near field imaging will be surprisingly similar, though perception is complex hence bass response differences, distortion, will influence overall perception.  

Since you keep putting yourself up as an expert @kota1 why not tell us all about imaging. School is. We are all ears.

@mijostyn for the record, I do have line arrays but with dynamic speakers with waveguides for the tweeters. Planars and E-stats have trouble hitting the volume peaks I like at times. I also have as you would call them point sources. The line arrays don't image any better than a good point source in a proper space especially near field and I am exposed to those almost many times a week.   I do think for many that line arrays would be easier to integrate into their rooms but I doubt the spousal factor is any better than acoustic panels. This market is not set up for the straightest path to the best sound. 

@kota1 for reasons only known to you you have issues with me. Feel free to direct message me and rant all you want. Be respectful and don’t make your issue everyone else’s issue as you are doing. It is disrespectful to everyone else here. Only you can make the actions of not making your beef everyone else's problem.