"Early reflections off a wall is what compromises imaging usually."
Agreed.
The ear/brain system uses the time delay between the first arrival sound and the onset of reflections in judging the distance of a sound source ("image depth"). This isn't the only thing used, but it plays a large role in most home audio setups.
The ear/brain system can detect the time delay for the reflections that bounce off the wall behind the speakers, and tends to use those fairly subtle cues to interpret a maximum image depth of about twice that distance. Aggressive radiation pattern control and/or room treatment can help here, but ime it's easier to trick the ear/brain system into giving us a deeper soundstage if we can generate significant later-arriving reflections that dominate the ear/brain's depth cue intake.
Recently I've worked with systems that generate fairly strong reflections which arrive later than you'd normally expect, and the result has been an increase in apparent image depth to considerably greater than twice the distance to the wall. Credit to inventor James Romeyn for this technique (a highly directional secondary array that fires from the floor up at the ceiling, and yes it's patent pending), which I use with his permission.
Jim is showing a pair of speakers with this configuration at T.H.E. Show Newport Beach right now. I plan to spend more time listening with them up against the wall after the show, but my own limited testing before they left indicated enjoyable image depth even when positioned within a couple of inches of the wall.
I did not expect the increase in image depth that we observed when we first tried Jim's configuration with purpose-built speakers. I expected improved timbre, and maybe improved sense of envelopment, but the image depth was a surprise. The "feel" is sort of reminiscent of a good dipole or bipole (Jim's system could be thought of a type of bipole), but without the distance-from-the-wall requirements.
Please take my comments here with a grain of salt, as this is a designer saying nice things about his product.
Duke
Agreed.
The ear/brain system uses the time delay between the first arrival sound and the onset of reflections in judging the distance of a sound source ("image depth"). This isn't the only thing used, but it plays a large role in most home audio setups.
The ear/brain system can detect the time delay for the reflections that bounce off the wall behind the speakers, and tends to use those fairly subtle cues to interpret a maximum image depth of about twice that distance. Aggressive radiation pattern control and/or room treatment can help here, but ime it's easier to trick the ear/brain system into giving us a deeper soundstage if we can generate significant later-arriving reflections that dominate the ear/brain's depth cue intake.
Recently I've worked with systems that generate fairly strong reflections which arrive later than you'd normally expect, and the result has been an increase in apparent image depth to considerably greater than twice the distance to the wall. Credit to inventor James Romeyn for this technique (a highly directional secondary array that fires from the floor up at the ceiling, and yes it's patent pending), which I use with his permission.
Jim is showing a pair of speakers with this configuration at T.H.E. Show Newport Beach right now. I plan to spend more time listening with them up against the wall after the show, but my own limited testing before they left indicated enjoyable image depth even when positioned within a couple of inches of the wall.
I did not expect the increase in image depth that we observed when we first tried Jim's configuration with purpose-built speakers. I expected improved timbre, and maybe improved sense of envelopment, but the image depth was a surprise. The "feel" is sort of reminiscent of a good dipole or bipole (Jim's system could be thought of a type of bipole), but without the distance-from-the-wall requirements.
Please take my comments here with a grain of salt, as this is a designer saying nice things about his product.
Duke