Nearfield listening - once more

With very small speakers 4 inches woofer i prefer rear porthole ...Because it is easier to redesign his volume /neck ratio in a more nuanced and complex way ...

The result i reach with this modification elevated the performance to an incredible level ... near 50 hertz strong, no boominess, clarity all along the frequencies scales ...I modified also the wave guide of the tweeter for my position ( 3 feet ) resulting in a soundstage extending way beside each speakers with frontal and rear death...

All that with 150 bucks well reviewed  but modified active  speakers but  also damped against vibration and resonance  with my own device which is concrete block with over it a sandwich of many different materials ( oak plate-bamboo plate- granite plate-shungite- plate cork -plate sorbothane plate ,alterning in this sanwich more softer material with the harder one for an optimal coupling-decoupling chain ) and the damping is with tuned load of concrete block over them also ... All my connectors are shielded with my recipe (shungite plate)...

I can assure you save for deep bass under 50 hertz  for sure, i lack nothing and my active speakers driven by a tube preamplifier beat all headphone i heard save my top best one and reference one : the only working hybrid AKG K340  optimized and modified  which go near 25 hertz clear ....

Some are proud of their 100,000 bucks system 😊... Me i am proud without reservation of my 1,000 bucks one😁 Speakers + NOS dac + tubes preamp and tones control and a new amplification ( Sansui alpha) dedicated for the headphone only with his own battery dac ...

I only need the BACCH system of filters as upgrade  ... Anyway even without them i listen a soundfield with differential space qualities ( i mechnically decreased the crosstalk ) in my speakers and out of the head soundfield with the K340...

All this to say rear porthole are not bad at all , if you know what to do ....😊

Ported speakers might work if the port is in the front, but if in the back, trouble ahead

Good nearfield listening must be done in a very small room ..

And the acoustic control of this small room matter very much for the S.Q. in near field listening ...

The speed of sound is such that in a room under 13 feet , the reflected waves from side and low ceiling and the direct waves participated  together in the holographic impression ...

Near listening in a non treated small room is not the same as in a treated small room.. It is my experience ...

Then saying that in near field room acoustic dont matter is not true ...😁

Interesting experiment asctim ...

I used a foldable wood screen with absorption and diffusive surface as a focusing lens between my ears and the room speakers and walls ...It was not farfield nor nearfield ... I was in my listening position at 9 feet from the speakers...

Astounding... I felt like the best of headphone intimacy  coupled with speakers holographic and  realistic impression...

In some recorded albums the soundstage extended all around me almost behind me ...

But my room was heavily tuned with 100 different resonators ...

After this experience i understood why sound experience is mostly acoustics and psycho-acoustics ... Not taste ...

@mahgister I didn't imply that room treatments aren't necessary for near-field listening. I said the impact from the room is minimal since you get the more direct sound than indirect sound. Also I cannot comment on "soundstage" from near-field listening since it is depends on other factors.

Ok i understand better ... Thanks for the clarification .. And for sure you are right about the other factors...

If I sit forwards, almost between the speakers, yes, the soundstage will be located here. But is this neccessarily worse?

Yes it is the worse situation ... Because a well done acoustic relation between speakers position and listener position and room acoustics controls will always give a soundstage able to make many well recorded albums filling all space around you outside of the speakers limit border and in front of the speakers ...

Nearfield listening does not equal a soundstage isolated between the speakers ... This is why room acoustics, vibration/resonance controls of the speakers and decrease of the electrical noise floor of the room/house/system matter all together exactly as in farfield listening ...

Nearfield listening must be better than almost all headphones and never being a stopgap ... It is  so for me , with  active speakers i never liked for 10 years which cost me peanuts... But when i had learned how to use them properly and modify them and optimize them they metamorphosed themselves from caterpillar to swan .... What is possible with  this 100 bucks speakers as my own must be possible with any costlier speakers with a basic good design ...

Acoustic rules the gear pieces even in near listening ...

So near-filed and far-field are basically relative to the speaker design,

For sure beside of the acoustic ratio and timing and direction of reflected versus directed waves importance, the design and the type of speakers play a great role ... Thanks for reminding us of this important fact ...

But if one listen nearfield and dont control acoustically the timing and direction of reflected versus directed waves with acoustic treatment in the room near the listening position , the result will be a no existing soundstage or one located only between the speakers ...

As you pointed to yourself:

Essentially near-field listening gives you a listening experience similar to that of headphones, but with imaging and perhaps sound-stage.

Nearfield listening with speakers is better well done than most headphone listening save perhaps with the best headphone in the world , in my experience, because of the soundstage which is out of our head, unlike almost all  headphone ( save my K340 ) ...

My near listening field encompass my listening position , is holographic and way out of the speakers plane in width and depth ... My speakers cost , so good they are , is very low then it is not the result of a superlative design ( i modify the porthole and the tweeter for sure) but the result of room acoustic and vibrations resonance controls, crosstalk control to some extent also ...

Room acoustic cannot be replaced or being disposed of because we listen nearfield ...

Very important clarification for all here ... Thanks and welcome here by the way ...

Nearfield and Farfield are acoustic terms to describe the ratio of of direct vs reflected sound. If in the listening position you get more direct sound from the source than reflected sound from your environment (walls, floors, etc.) you’re in the acoustic nearfield.

It is why i always observed and mark in my posts that nearfield listening dont spare us of treating at least the acoustic corner or even the small room where we sit ... Because in nearfield or in farfield as well , what differ is the ratio of reflected waves versus the direct waves and the way the frontwave win over the reflected waves in some critical amount of time ...in the two cases there is reflected as direct waves anyway, but the way the brain/ears interpreted them is function of time and from the direction of the incoming  direct or reflected waves...

Reflections are not all bad by the way and i used them to create a three D holographic soundfield ...Timing is the key and the time  ratio between the source ( ceiling or wall or floor ) of the reflected waves versus the direct waves ... ...

The listener position head and ears is the primary factor analysing the timing ratio ...

I have a soundfield encompassing the listener position (3 feet) and 2 feet outside of the speakers with depth...

I used 100 bucks modified small active speakers ...Natural timbre and pin point imaging ..

But i modify the porthole design ...

On most speakers the porthole is not well design for esthetical and cost reason ...

The volume of the porthole must be tune , any speakers with a porthole is a Helmholtz resonators... In these resonators the ratio between the volume of the box the cross ratio of the neck dimensions is fundamental ...Most speakers designer generally did not invest invest in supplementary research cost to implement a complex porthole, especially extending outside of the wooden box...

And those designers who create an internal labyrinth for a well designed porthole ask for more than the cheap amount i paid for my 2 way speakers with a small inefficient tube as porthole... So well reviewed thy were my M-audio AV40 were disliked by me for 10 years BEFORE i redesigned the porthole ...

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/labyrinth-cabinets-are-they-good.2725345/

Then i recommend in near field a two way speakers with a rear porthole which you can simply redesigned using straws of different volume or lenght, inserted in one another and flexible ...

Doing this i goes from 85 Hertz to 50 hertz clear not boomy ...No need for a sub anymore ...

I also redesigned the wave guide tweeter form with cylinder of the right lenght   adjusted for my listening position ...

Absolutely transformative ...

But no audio company will sell these modified speakers  because it is too bizarre and unesthetical ...

i dont give a damn listening music quality soundfield and timbre  better than all headphones i ever own ( save the AKG K340 )..

Viva near listening at peanuts costs!

Small active speakers + tube pre-amp+ Nos Dac....

But in nearfield listening room acoustic matter in spite of the general belief...😁 I even use two wood screen to decrease crosstalk in some way in a mechanical way waiting to buy the BACCH filters ...

The mechanical controls of vibration and resonance by tuned damping and a sandwich of various minerals and wood and sorbothane plate ( granite-Oak-bamboo-cork -shungite plates) ... I used more than three times the weight of the speakers over them to damp them and granite heavy block on my desk with sandwich of various materials for the coupling-decoupling process under them ...The improvement was stunning ... A metamorphosis ...

The EMI shielding with shungite plate...Which tweak i myself designed with copper tape ...

The modification of the design of the tweeter and of the rear porthole matter a lot ...( my 4 inches woofer now go 50 hertz instead of the specified 85 hertz) I dont need a sub ... Timbre perception is very important and there is no natural timbre with 85 hertz of bass ... And integrating a sub is costlier and more complex, more easy to improve the speakers for me  as i did ...It is why i will never bought  small closed speakers without porthole ... Redesigning the porthole improve the speakers  and put them in another level ...

All this cost me peanuts because each piece of gear was carefully chosen ....

My main system is not speakers in nearfield but headphone ( the only hybrid ever designed which beat my speakers for naturalness and soundstage holography "out of the head".... ( AKG K340 driven from the headphone out of my powerful Sansui alpha 607i , no headphone amp can drive them properly 😁)

I own a secondary headphone S.S. pre-amplifier with tone controls for my AKG K701 which so good they are are like trash compared to the K340 ...I used them for movie at night ...Not music ...

Near field listening to be optimal need acoustic control of the room corner where the speakers are located ...

Small speakers are rarely good even those well reviewed as mine were by Steve Guttenberg when i bought them ( M-audio av 40 ) if you dont pay thousands of dollars i guess ... I hated my actual active speakers for 10 years and never listened music with these "pieces of trash " in my mind ... They shined only when desesperate with nothing else to use i create an acoustic dedicated corner and modify them as described above with a new porthole a more complex one with a bigger volume well tuned with different straws ... The tweeter was redesigned for near listening too ...I add a tuned wave guide with cardboard tube ....Dont laugh... The result is stunning on all acoustic count... No headphone can compete i ever owned ( 2 Stax, one magneplanar many dynamics) save the K340 which outshine them for speaker-like more realism with deep bass ...

My wife is almost deaf then i listen music alone ...

I dont feel any frustration or envy for big speakers at all ...Designing a dedicated acoustic room for big speakers take me one year full time ... I will never do it again , it was fun but once you know and learn something, revisiting it is less fun and will take perhaps a bit less time but anyway a very long time for the mechanical ears tuning ( i used a grid of mechanically tuned Helmholtz resonators ( 100 resonators from 8 feet to few inches ) 😊

i am happy with my near-field listening ... It is less stunning than my past acoustic room with big speakers but i learn to be happy because it is more complicate ... And anyway my actual headphone compete even with my past speakers/room ...

Dont buy the akg k340 by the way ... Out of the box they need to be modified and optimized ,they are old now .... Or buy them and sell me another pair .... 😉

In a word near listening is another kind of listening as headphone are ... Not a stop gap... A simpler way to listen music which can rival big speakers especially if they are less well embedded as it is mostly the case ( not in the bass for sure even if i am happy with clear 50 hertz) ...