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Audiophile Goal Perfect Center Image

I know the audiophile goal is to have the two speakers disappear and have the musical image floating in the center. My question is, why not use a single column Line array facing the listener. In these systems they project sound 180 degrees. The demo I heard was by a company named Wisdom Audio. It was a 9 foot column made up of multiple small drivers. That one column filled a very large listening space with seemingly 360 degree sound! Of course they also had outboard subwoofers for full range sound and expensive electronics. Incredible experience! Track: Takla Makan by Yello. I know we have two ears but when I went to a live concert recently the sound was coming from that one musician, not from the left or right 10-15 feet apart like speakers are placed. Why do we need two speakers if the goal is to make them sound like they are coming from one source?

wweiss
wweiss OP
28 posts
 

I agree that particular track is incredibly recorded, but I did listen to others and I could swear there were speakers all over the room turned on. I actually checked. No it was this ONE array/subwoofers filling the room 180 degrees! I think at lower volumes this affect wasn’t as dramatic, but at volumes say 85-90dB+ the sound was very live sounding and enveloping.

soix
8,840 posts
 

Music is recorded/mixed in stereo and needs to be reproduced that way with two speakers.  That the one Wisdom speaker sounded good, while maybe surprising, is irrelevant — only real question is how much better it would’ve sounded with two line-array speakers and reproducing what the recording engineer truly intended.  BTW, I’m a huge fan of line-array speakers (Nola, Genelec, etc.) and understand why even one would sound pretty good.  

wweiss OP
28 posts
 

I was under the impression line array speakers need to be a minimum of 15 feet or more apart or else phase issues come into play.  Many listening rooms don't have the space for the proper stereo spread.  In your typical large home listening room this one speaker could fill every inch, two would probably have been overkill or counterproductive??

ghdprentice
6,478 posts
 

Push the mono button on your preamp. How is the central image now?

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