narrow and wide baffles and imaging

I don’t know the answer here, but simply on some personal experience:
The wider-baffle speakers that I’ve become acquainted with and auditioned - I’m thinking the larger Harbeth models, Devore and to some degree Audio Note - all have impressed me by "disappearing" and soundstaging much more than I would have expected given their looks, and given the usual audiophile ideas that narrow profile speakers image well/wide speakers don’t.

That said....

It’s also the case that while those speakers did surprising imaging/soundstaging/disappearing, they also weren’t near head of the class for those qualities. In each case I have found soundstage depth somewhat flattened, and a sense I can hear the speaker contributing to the sound (which as a hunch could be due to the thinner-cabinet-working-with-resonances approach also taken by those speakers).  Many narrow baffle speakers seem to disappear much "more" and with greater depth to the imaging.

In the wider baffle speakers I'm familiar with, a consistent impression has been a bigger, more full sound especially in the midrange, vs the typical narrow profile speaker.   That's certainly a big aspect of what attracts me to the Harbeth and Devore speakers.

(Though, at least in my case, when I bought the Harbeth Super HL5 plus speakers to try at home,  I couldn't get them to image with the believable depth that I'm generally accustomed to).

one of the reasons i like to own several speakers w widely divergent design philosophy but from competent designers....

Same here.


I own Thiel and love the first order/time/phase coherence aspect of the design.


But I also enjoy owning diverging designs.  Right now I have speakers from Waveform (very "NRC" in approach),  Spendor, Hales, and most divergent...MBL Radialstrahler speakers.


No speaker  I've ever heard "does everything" for me, and I like the things one speaker may do that another doesn't.   Also helps with not getting bored. 

tangramca,


What exactly did you not like about the imaging on the Devore speakers?


I've auditioned them and found the imaging surprisingly good.  Depth maybe a bit foreshortened though.

fsonicsmith,


I know Shakey Graves.  (Not exactly a fan, but he got on my radar due to some recommendation).


As I've mentioned, I found the 0/96 and 0/93 imaging pretty good, even if not pin-point.   I also really got yet another reminder of the importance of speaker positioning.  As you know the Devores generally have a big, rich sound.   But at one point while moving them around during my audition the dealer had them closer together, and really toed in heavily.  At that point that richness and image size practically disappeared into a small, squeezed sound!  Once we spread them out enough again, and aimed them right, then they did that Devore thing with big rich images and weight.


tangramca,


Yeah, if you are wedded to the most pin-point imaging the Devores are the wrong direction.  That said, I'm still surprised they didn't turn your crank at all, given the genres you mentioned are particularly suited to the Devores IMO.