Omnidirectional speakers. The future?


I have been interested in hi-fi for about 25 years. I usually get the hankering to buy something if it knocks my socks off. Like most I started with a pair of box speakers. Then I heard a pair of Magnepans and was instantly hooked on planars. The next sock knocker was a pair of Soundlabs. I saved until I could afford a pair of Millenium 2's. Sock knocker number 3 was a pair of Shahinian Diapasons (Omnidirectional radiators utilizing multiple conventional drivers pointed in four directions). These sounded as much like real music as anything I had ever heard.
Duke from Audiokinesis seems to be onto the importance of loudspeaker radiation patterns. I don't see alot of other posts about the subject.
Sock knocker number four was a pair of Quad 988's. But wait, I'm back to planars. Or am I? It seems the Quads emmulate a point source by utilizing time delay in concentric rings in the diaphragms. At low volumes, the Quads might be better than my Shahinians. Unfortunately they lack deep bass and extreme dynamics so the Shahinians are still my # 1 choice. And what about the highly acclaimed (and rightly so) Soundlabs. These planars are actually constructed on a radius.
I agree with Richard Shahinian. Sound waves in nature propagate in a polyradial trajectory from their point of source. So then doesn't it seem logical that a loudspeaker should try to emmulate nature?

holzhauer

Showing 1 response by jer

I am so intrigued with this concept that, I am going to try out the hybrid omni directional Ohm Micro Walsh's with the matching center channel for my apartment. Admittedly, I am a little nervous getting them site unseen. They will be my first entry into nicer audiophile speakers and if they don’t work out, well then I’ll just return them. I listened to several less than 1000.00 floorstanders from some respectable manufacturers. B&W JMLAB, Paradigm, Monitor Audio Acoustic Energy, Dali, and only the Dali Suite series seemed to come close to really moving me regarding imaging. That is where I think they will excel. I also seems like everyone that has owned an Ohm Walsh speaker in the past reflects on them with positive memories.