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If you don't have a wide sweet spot, are you really an audiophile?

Hi, it’s me, professional audio troll. I’ve been thinking about something as my new home listening room comes together:

The glory of having a wide sweet spot.

We focus far too much on the dentist chair type of listener experience. A sound which is truly superb only in one location. Then we try to optimize everything exactly in that virtual shoebox we keep our heads in. How many of us look for and optimize our listening experience to have a wide sweet spot instead?

I am reminded of listening to the Magico S1 Mk II speakers. While not flawless one thing they do exceptionally well is, in a good room, provide a very good, stable stereo image across almost any reasonable listening location. Revel’s also do this. There’s no sudden feeling of the image clicking when you are exactly equidistant from the two speakers. The image is good and very stable. Even directly in front of one speaker you can still get a sense of what is in the center and opposite sides. You don’t really notice a loss of focus when off axis like you can in so many setups.

Compare and contrast this with the opposite extreme, Sanders' ESL’s, which are OK off axis but when you are sitting in the right spot you suddenly feel like you are wearing headphones. The situation is very binary. You are either in the sweet spot or you are not.

From now on I’m declaring that I’m going all-in on wide-sweet spot listening. Being able to relax on one side of the couch or another, or meander around the house while enjoying great sounding music is a luxury we should all attempt to recreate.
erik_squires
audioman58's avatar
audioman58
3,916 posts
 
One thing to mention speakers ,since  I have been modding them mainly for myself and a few others for many years, your Xover is the ❤️ or brain 🧠 
of any Loudspeaker, the Vast majority of Xover parts are average quality  at best.
out of a scale 1-15 on average a 7.
Also your binding post 90% are cheap gold over brass, not very musical.and poor conductor.high resistance.
a decent WBT copper gold with  Furutech copper gold crimp on terminals is far better then solder, and upgrading the Xover essential for expended soundstage 
width,depth and precision imaging ,the quality of stock capacitors,resistors, inductors,
even wiring many times is average at Best. If you love your speaker, and the drivers are of good quality well worth the consideration ,if limited on internal space ,then a external Xover with small custom boxes would be the answer ,better quality Xover Bigger parts = a Huge upgrade ,look at Tony Gees capacitor cook book fir starters Humblehomemadehifi capacitor test, and Original pre 2011 Mills resistors excellent ,sonic craft carry, or the Best but $$  Path audio resistors Jantzen awg 14 inductors waxed foil, or open coil for bass,excellent value $$
erik_squires OP
15,914 posts
 
I am all for good crossover parts, as I think may be evident in past tweets, but the width of the sweet spot is going to be much more affected by the crossover frequencies chosen than the cost of the resistors.

Other things matter, of course, like the width of the baffle, and the dimensions of the individual radiators and their location, but once those are set, it is the Hz at which the crossovers occur which determine whether or not there will be smooth off-axis response.

Best,
E
afisher
72 posts
 
Plastic surgeons can now tighten and uplift your sweet spot.
musicfan2349's avatar
musicfan2349
211 posts
 
Hmmm... When I sit in the narrow sweetspot that I have and really listen, I’m thinking that what I’m hearing is what the producer wanted me to hear when they mastered the recording with reference to sound stage. Whether the sonic picture is narrow or wide, the relative placement was chosen at the recording console. However, there are times when I’m not all that focused on placement. When is that? When the music is on as background.

Does that mean when I stand up or am in the kitchen suddenly I’m not someone’s idea of an "audiofile"? Perhaps. However timbre and SQ still matter: It’s still has to sound "right" even if I’m not in the optimal physical location for the stereo image. And therein perhaps lies "redemption". LOL The point I’m trying to make is that so much of this avocation is subjective if not downright arbitrary. For my part, I refuse to get wrapped around the proverbial axle due to someone’s pronouncement of what is "right".


Happy Listening.
erik_squires OP
15,914 posts
 
I hope everyone reading this understands that I wanted to celebrate a wide sweet spot much more than caring about who an audiophile is.  Experience has led me to believe you guys only read threads that seem contentious though, so I had to lead with that.  ;-D
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