My small room has made me a nearfield believer. I auditioned many two-way speakers because they generally have the best integration, but I craved more bass than any two-way could deliver. With three-way speakers, integration is tougher, but some designs/brands make this a priority and should be checked out. Even in a larger room, a nearfield setup can be excellent, since the basic point is to remove room reflections as much as possible at the listening position by having the direct sound from the speaker arrive long before any reflections. Look for 4th order crossovers and the designer's emphasis on driver matching for best results. I've also found that bi-wiring can be helpful in smoothing out transition fron driver to driver. Audio Physic, Totem and Aerial tend to be good nearfield brands, among others, although this brings me to the issue of side-mounted woofers. My experience is that the side-mount can create lots of problems loading small rooms, so, as always, take your time and try everything.
Positioning and Listening distance
As run-off from another thread ( Legacy speakers ), we ended up talking about speaker positioning, listening distance and minimizing room interaction. While we are all aware of the various formulas for speaker placement and listening position, none of these take into account the size or design of the speaker. As such, i've found that speakers with a lot of drivers or drivers that are spaced out quite a bit typically require a greater listening distance than a physically small speaker or speaker that uses just a few drivers. On top of this, the greater listening distance also tends to highlight problems that may be present in the speaker / room interface. While we can theorize on why this might be so, i was wondering if anybody else has run into this situation and what their experience / results were. Any / All comments appreciated and welcome. Sean
>
>