Do you have an approx weight for the floorstander satellite? It seems like such a speaker (with Swarm support) would completely eclipse the performance of the current big LCS system. In theory at least.
I estimate the weight will be in the 80-85 pound ballpark.
This will be more or less an attempt at a "statement" system, in that it will incorporate most of the really good ideas that I have access to, though it won't be in the sports-car price range.
One of the markets I intend to target is high-end home theater, as the format I'll be using has been
demonstrated to make a dedicated center channel speaker unnecessary. Several of my Prisma customers have sold their center channel speakers after trying their Prismas in phantom-center mode.
I remember Earl Geddes telling me that the center channel of his receiver died on his home theater system, and he didn't even notice, because his cross-firing mains carried the dialogue so well throughout the room. And presumably he wasn't even using phantom center mode!
The main advantage of a center channel is anchoring the dialogue on-screen for viewers who are off the centerline. But if we can get that same effect via crossfiring highly directional mains, we can pick up a few improvements:
1. No change in timbre across the soundstage. Unless the center channel is identical to the left and right speakers, it will sound a bit different, and maybe a lot different.
2. No change in the height of the sound source across the screen. If the center channel is below the sceen, that can be enough of a discrepancy to be distracting.
3. Better depth of image. This is more likely to be noticed and appreciated with music videos than with movies, but for some of us, it would be nice to have.
4. Inherently more of a dual-use (music and movies) system.
One advantage of stand mounts is being able to adjust height. Seems like 95% of floor standers assume the listener is either standing or sitting on bar stools. Please consider using your listeners using a comfortable chair as one of starting point givens in your designs (that's what I did when I commissioned floor standers 12 years ago). Even with stand mounts variable height stands are far too rare (I own a pair which came in handy for our club's monthly meeting yesterday).
Good point, I hadn't considered that - thanks!
Normally I shoot for getting the tweeter centered on approximate typical seated ear height, around 38 inches. Some of my customers like the presentation a bit better with their ears at about the midpoint between tweeter and woofer, and have built short stands to elevate the speakers a few inches, or listen in a chair that puts their ears correspondingly lower. I'm under the impression that, for home theater, we might want to elevate the speakers so they're a bit closer to the mid-height of the screen, which would call for stands tailored to the specific situation. So I might have to offer stands after all.