Real or Surreal. Do you throw accuracy out the window for "better" sound?

@asctim 

It is because of dipole effect. They radiate in a 3D figure 8 pattern minimizing sound to the sides, up or down. Thus, there is less room interaction. I might suggest deadening the wall directly behind the speakers. It will improve your imaging. If I read you correctly you like your system because it sounds more "real" to you and that is what it is all about.

The attraction to dipoles is very significant in residential settings dealing with smaller spaces. Once people try a dipole system (with the exception of subwoofers) they are generally loth to go back. 

@mijostyn

I think I’m becoming a believer in dipoles. My setup isn’t even close to ideal yet and it’s already making me really happy. I’ve moved the crossover all the way up to 3500 Hz and it sounds amazing even though the mid is pretty beamy up there. The effect is to move the soundstage back. It sounds very natural, smooth and atmospheric, even at low volume. I stayed up too late last night because I could turn it down low enough not to bother anyone and it was sounding so sweet.

As you suggest, I do plan on getting some absorption behind the drivers once I get the baffle standing on it’s own so I can get rid of the old TV cabinet it’s leaning on. I’ve also ordered a ceiling TV bracket so the TV won’t have to be held up. It’s generally recommended to get open baffles 3 feet away from the back wall but I don’t have the space. I’m going to be pushing up against the wall as close I can get away with while maintaining the beautiful sound, so absorption will be critical. Fortunately I work at ASC so we have all kinds of absorbers on tap. BTW, ASC got started specifically on request to build an absorber to go behind a Magnepan that had to be close to the back wall.

I had an idea to use the TV as an extension of the baffle. I might experiment with that, but I have a feeling it won’t be good to make the baffle that much bigger. I fear that will just delay the dipole side cancellation, taking the edge of the baffle too close to the ceiling so it won’t kill the ceiling bounce as effectively. I left the bottom of the baffle open too to help kill some immediate floor bounce.

Dear @asctim , thank you for your point:

I suspect that a lot of music lovers who aren’t audiophiles are exceptionally good at re-constructing what’s missing or distorted in the playback. They don’t even know they’re doing it, so they don’t get what all the audiophile fuss is about.

This is something about myself as I live with an audiophile who is not enjoying music if the production, I mean recording, could be better, in his view, done! Even the perfect execution of the piece of music, in his view, is not worth listening to if there’s something wrong with the recording. I agree and disagree at the same time.
I agree that the recording is horrible and unpleasant to listen to.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with my audiophilistic half when there are small bits and imperfections in sound because I know how much work must be done before even the musical piece is executed in front of anyone. Not to mention how much work is needed to put it on the record.
My piano teacher and even the choir conductor always said to look for the perfect and true music in the live performance rather than in the recorded music. Yes, on the record, the music is there. Still, the emotions and the message drawn within the music performance are possible to transmit and receive only in the concert hall or in live events.

Scrolling different audiophiles’ channels you can discover the single pieces of gear have their own personalities, sounds, ecc. Like the amplifiers which tend to have even some sound signature.

Check it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uDeoY0c8WE

Sometimes, it seems too much to be bothered, making me forget about the pleasures of listening to music at work or during the house activities. I do really, sometimes, prefer to listen to some piece from my laptop, and I’m not ashamed of that. Yes, the audiophile fuss sometimes can break the heart of a simple music lover.

This is something about myself as I live with an audiophile who is not enjoying music if the production, I mean recording, could be better, in his view, done! Even the perfect execution of the piece of music, in his view, is not worth listening to if there’s something wrong with the recording. I agree and disagree at the same time.

Most music lovers dont need to be audiophiles and dont really want to be one at all cost...Music is all for them...

A serious audiophile  in my opinion must learn musical concepts and styles , and also acoustic concepts, to be serious...A superficial audiophile with obsessive disorder and compulsive disorder to some degree will refuse to listen to classical music badly recorded for example because he  always FOCUS his attention on sound quality recording to TEST his system level  and not on musical interpretation or  not onto his room acoustic properties  and  ways of translating optimally the bad as well as the good recording ...And he will do anything to improve the fidelity of the recorded translation BUT  with the focus on the gear component with costly cables for example way more than with the real acoustic controls of his room ...

This is more gear fetischism than learning experiments in acoustic and learnings experiments with other  embeddings controls for his system ...Price tag will mean something ultimate , and he can be a measured fanatic audiophile or a subjective hearing audiophiles that does not matter ...None of them experiment in mechanical,electrical and acoustical embeddings... Objectivist and subjectivist audiophile tend to be gear fetichist or tool fetichist  and are enemy brothers on the same ground : the gear measures or the gear "taste" and price tags first and last ...

The superficial audiophiles , being objectivist or subjectivist, put acoustics science to be secondary to the electronic gear system , and they reduce complex acoustics concepts to simple recipe of room acoustic ( buying panels) and they are more occupied with sound than with music genre and style  learnings  ...

I consider myself fortunate to be able to appreciate and enjoy high quality audio and visual reproduction even though I don’t require it to enjoy content (although some content can be pretty rough on the ears if it isn't reproduced really well, or sometimes if it's reproduced too well.) I have magic moments listening to classical music on the cheap FM radio in the car, sometimes when it’s not coming in very well. I’ve been emotionally moved by pictures printed on cheap media, or movies watched on 20" CRT televisions. I think most audiophiles and videophiles are the same way. Maybe we need a term like mediaphile for people who are excited about all kinds of high quality audio/visual and perhaps even 3D printed reproduction, castings, fine scale modeling, etc.