Which speakers do the hologram thing?

While horns have never been known for "imaging", i was quite amazed at how solidly images were anchored when listening to a pair of Avant-Garde's. The "mid-sized" Pipe Dreams also had excellent imagery. Both of these were very stable and pinpoint. Keep in mind that a LOT of this has to do with the rest of the system though and not just the speakers.

As to being "immersed in sound", i have never heard anything that can present as deep of a soundstage as a point source full range driver with 360* of horizontal radiation. Sean
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While i'm not knocking ANY specific speaker brand or type, i've seen a lot of "love" towards the Soundlabs ( probably deservedly so, but i don't know ). How can a speaker that radiates sound in phase on one side and out of phase on the other side produce as coherent of sound as a speaker that is phase coherent for 360* i.e. the sound coming out of the front, sides, rear of the driver emanates from the same source travelling at the same speed and in the same polarity ?

If you look at many acoustic based instruments, they radiate direct sound in phase in multiple directions i.e. a plucked, strummed or bowed string produces sound evenly around its' circumference and the entire length. I would "think" that a driver that had a similar radiation pattern would most closely appr what you would hear at a live performance. Maybe, maybe not. That's what i'm trying to find out here.

This is NOT meant to knock anybody or anything, it is a legit question. I am trying to compare different technologies / designs with how we percieve sound and music. I am interested in comments both speculative and based on factual knowledge of acoustics. Let's see if we can find out WHY different models / designs perform "better" than others... Sean
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Detlof, the thing with live acoustic instruments is that all of the sound is initially reproduced in phase and then is "distorted" or "delayed" by room acoustics & reflections. A single full range driver that radiates omnidirectionally in phase follows the same basic principles of the instrument it is trying to reproduce AND falls prey to the same culprit i.e. "room reflections" in like manner. In direct comparison, a dipolar driver is already distorted in comparison since it is contributing out of phase output at the same time it is in phase. It only gets worse from there in terms of the even greater problems associated with room reflections, etc...

I wonder what a panel type speaker sounds like with the back wave effectively nulled ? I've heard of guys building carefully thought out "enclosures" onto the back of them and being VERY happy with the results. This would give you the excellent transient response associated with these designs, get rid of the out of phase contribution that the back wave produces, increase low frequency output due to the lack of cancellation, should make placement a little easier, etc...

My thoughts are that a relatively deep "D" shaped cabinet with a curvature at the top and bottom would work best for something like this. That type of a design would not have any corners to produce standing waves nor have any parralel surfaces to aid internal reflections. An open "pocket" directly behind the panel would act as air spring tensioning, maintaining the panels linearity. The walls of the cabinet would be lined with a thick layer of insulation for internal absorption purposes.

I know that Newform markets ribbons something like this ( not sure EXACTLY how they are built ), so that may be something to look into. I don't think that any of them offer enough surface area to do low frequencies though, so it somewhat defeats the purpose of what i had in mind. Then again, we would end up with a front firing design that would probably lack the dimensionality, space and air that multi-directional designs seem to offer. Oh well.... Sean
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