Do 1st Order XO's produce a smaller


In my mind I'm trying to come to terms with two possible conflicting desires:

1. The desire for transparency, accuracy, dynamics and a wide halographic soundstage presentation.

2. The desire for a much larger sweet spot to compensate for multiple listening positions. I want the advantage of on-axis detail, but I don't want this space to be limited by inches or a few feet.

The concept of time coherency makes perfect sense to me and seems to be a superior design philosophy in conjunction with the ability to control phase shift (smear). However, based on what I've read it appears most of the 1st order time coherent designs being created today have relatively narrow sweet spots. If you're on-axis these designs can be musical nirvana, but what if you're off-axis or move to another location in the room? Typically you tend to lose the benefit of this design.

Conversely one has the option of going the Ohm "Walsh" or Meridian route and get an incredibly wide/deep soundstage because of the 360 degree sound dispersion. I've heard you can move around within a room and the sound quality does not deteriorate significantly. In other words this type of speaker design fills up an entire room and sounds great where ever you are sitting or standing. However, are we giving up a critical level of accuracy with this design approach? With sound esstentially arriving at our ears at different times are we really getting an accurate representation of each instrument? Is the music being smeared in some way?

I guess like most audiophiles I want my cake and eat it too! I want transparency/accuracy/dynamics as well as a wide and deep soundstage that doesn't depend on a 12" on-axis listening/positioning limitation. Are there any designs that meet these qualifications?
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Go with a single driver Jordan JX-92s speaker from www.carolinaaudio.com. "First order" no crossover design and only driver so no driver blending or sweet spot problem.

Gotta wonder what's going on with Phasecorrect's statements.
Konus Audio Systems (http://www.konus-audio.com) single driver speakers are supposed to be even better than the Carolina Audio version. Having said that, I've read enough reviews on single driver designs to suspect they just don't demonstrate the full spectrum of dynamics that a full three-way can provide.
My Europas also have a rather narrow sweet spot. With that said, once outside of the sweet-spot, there still is a sense of seperation and imaging, but it's not nearly as intense, for lack of a better word. Of course, I'm listening to them from about 6 feet away, so that might have something to do with it. I also have a rather oddly shaped room. I would still buy them again in a second, since I tend to only do critical listening from that sweet spot anyway.
Single driver systems are also not immune to issues...one is asking alot of a driver to carry the full frequency load...which is why many single driver systems are rolled off on the top and have no bass...and have severe "beaming" problems...however...they are improving...and have some benefits:high efficiency being one....
This begs the question, if you are outside the sweet spot which sounds better, a 4th order x-over or 1st. 4th order makes driver / room interaction negigible so I would think 1st would only be better in the sweet spot.