The “They are here” vs “You are there” sound topic

To my ears and in my rooms I have found most conventional designs lean towards they are here presentations.  Projecting into the room with less rear wall interaction. A few exceptions along the way of stellar designs have done both when the recording offers it.  Conversely I’ve had Bi-polar and Di-polar designs that leaned more towards the you are there sound.  They all used the rear wall to create a hall effect to a greater degree.  Logans, Maggie, Mirage and Eminent Technology usually gave me the larger ambient field and when the venue was captured in recordings these designs almost always made me hear more of the you are there sound stage.  
Just my brief two cents on what I’ve experienced.   

@mijostyn

One clarifier, Mirage M1si and M3si were bi-polar designs -  Otherwise yes on the di-pole assessment and to be honest, from memory, the M1 & M3 did create the largest sound stages I ever heard in my old house.  They also gave me some sharper placement of musicians as compared to the di-poles.  Agree with you on the lack of side reflections allowing deeper into the recordings, especially the Maggies.  

Just read this post from Duke and felt it a good view point from a speaker designer. 

01-10-2020 1:51pmOne of the reasons Maggies sound so good is that they generate a lot of spectrally-correct backwave energy. When placed well out into the room, that backwave energy arrives after a relatively long time delay, which is desirable. This mimics, on a smaller scale, what we find in a good seat in a good concert hall: A time-gap in between the direct sound and the strong onset of reflections. According to researcher David Griesinger, the ear being able to separate out the direct sound from the reflections is highly beneficial, and is largely what differentiates a good seat from a bad one in a concert hall. 

In a home audio setting, there is a competition between two sets of venue cues: The venue cues on the recording (whether real or engineered); and the acoustic signature of the listening room. In order for the venue cues on the recording to dominate our perception and enable that elusive "you are there" illusion with a good recording, they must be presented effectively, while the listening room’s inherent "small room signature" is minimized. The backwave of the Maggies can present the recording venue cues effectively, and the long time delay from proper placement tends to minimize "small room signature", so Maggies set up properly can be very enjoyable. 

One of the things an acoustician does in a home audio setting is minimize the early reflections while preserving that energy so it can come back as later reflections. This is conceptually similar to what a good dipole does when set up properly. 

Because it is spectrally correct the backwave also enhances timbre, which again is something reflections do in a good concert or recital hall. 

I realize none of this speaks directly to the question of "what to get after Maggies", but perhaps awareness of what the backwave can contribute is helpful. 

Duke

@kenjit 
”Tonality, according to my definition is the area well below the crossover point. So it has nothing to do with off axis response.”

Please specify what frequency range, lowest to highest, you are referring to.  

kenjit

800 Hz down covers a broad spectrum of instrument fundamentals but those same instruments will never sound real without their 2nd and 3rd order harmonics.  Instruments are not one pitch wonders and need every overtone to create their timbre.  As Duke noted above your definition of tonality is different than the rest of us which makes it hard to understand what you are referring to or eluding to.  You can’t make speakers sound right if only the fundamentals are addressed.  In turn the upper frequencies are crucial to the accurate portrayal of timbre.