[Housteau]

I have been thinking about something lately and wanted to put it out there for discussion. 

A friend of mine has a smaller listening room very much on the dead side with point source speakers close to and along the short wall.  The soundstage and image presented in his room is quite precise with the vocalist taking center stage and the left and right center fill is just perfect as well.  However, the image of the various vocalists are so pin-point that the illusion of them often appear somewhat small to me and not life size.  The lack of reflections allows great imaging, but at the expense of robbing life out of the recordings. 

On the other hand my room and set-up is almost a direct opposite being larger and of an ideal Louden ratio.  It is slightly on the live side and I use dipolar speakers, either ribbons or electrostats set-up out into the room along the long wall.  The illusion of the vocalists image that I see in my mind is not pin-point, but wider as if a full sized person there between my speakers.  To me this sounds more correct, but to my friend it seems wrong.  Dipoles by their nature often cannot image vocals with pin-point accuracy as well as point source drivers can, but I find they do add more spacial energy and presence to that voice.  Non-vocal sounds will image nearly as well as the point sources though.  I assume that is because they are often less complex.

I guess each of us have different needs that we try and steer our systems to meet.  What I value and look for may not be what someone else has in mind.  For example:  My friend highly values that precise imaging, where I am willing to compromise on that a bit to achieve what I consider to be a more realistic presentation of soundstage.

I guess what I wanted to know is what do you see in your minds eye when listening to music?  What is it in the presentation of that illusion that you value the most?

Dave

[woodsyi]

Good topic Dave,

For me the most important thing is tonal presentation.  I don't need to locate the singer or instrument within inches but I want the right timbre from each instrument.  In a rough generalisation, I have noticed that systems with what I consider natural vocal presentation tends to be less precise in image location. 

[mcgsxr]

Great topic, and as a guy with open baffle, single driver speakers, one I can get in on!

For me, it is about rhythm and drive - if I don't feel the urge to move, or sing, then I am bored... sure, all that grooving ultimately ruins the imaging, but it is what the sport is about for me.

I find that if I sit and listen intently, I want to hear good imaging, but timbre takes the cake over it.

Guess I am a PRAT guy in the end, and the b200 Visatons deliver!

[R_burke]

I have and use both a pair of Innersound ISIS and a pair of RAW HT3s in a large extremely cluttered room without sound treatments.

For me the difference is one of placement of the musicians.  With the ISIS Elctrostats the musicians are right in front of me and/or the music fills the room.  With the HT3s the musicians are on a stage in front of me and I can pick the individuals out.  If I want to experience the music I use the ISIS, if I want to crtically listen to the instruments I use the HT3s.  The only exception is with classical music, I much prefer the ISIS, but that's probably because I don't want to listen to classical I want to experience it.

[Housteau]

Interesting responses so far and just what I was hoping for.  I see a lot of similarity in what you have all written and with myself.  The common thread does seems to be toward the subjective desire to recreate what we each consider to be the more realistic presentation, as opposed to just trying to achieve the technical idea of perfection.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=gallery

[flintstone]

I'm not a big fan of speakers that focus vocals in a very tight point...sounds fake,  and hifi to me.  I never could get used to listening to little tiny people singing. I guess if all the live music a person goes out and listens to  is un-miked, and they sit around 10-12ft from the singer they may think that dipole is over blown?...I don't go to any of that stuff though.

I'll stick with my dipoles.

Dave

[nathanm]

The most life-like results I've heard have been experiments with stereo microphones in my own room.  There is always a layer of "unreality" to the sound, though.  It always comes out colored, tonally speaking although in regards to imaging it's hyper-realistic.  Unfortunately this type of sound just isn't popular, I rarely hear it on records.  And it's odd because to my ears it's easier to achieve this sound than tweaking a large multi-channel mix of dry, direct sounds.  It's amazing how such a recording can make you forget the idea that you need to change this or that in the playback system.  But when you're listening to commercial music where you have no true reference, all this good stuff goes out the window.

I could never get the narrow center illusion of sound in my room, I think it's because the speakers aren't beamy.  Not certain about that though.  Wider dispersions tends to sound more realistic overall.  I still wonder about just how beamy electrostatics are and if I would possibly like the change.

[Scotty]

It has been my experience that if you can accurately reproduce most of the information contained in a recording with a WMTMW  loudspeaker or a line source loudspeaker the artificial  ambiance added by a dipole is no longer needed.You don't have to suffer the damage to imaging accuracy that is an inevitable consequence of bouncing half the music you listen to off of the wall behind the loudspeakers.
  You can have correct image scaling of instruments and vocalists if the monopole
loudspeaker has the  radiating area appropriate to the frequency range you are trying to reproduce. To put it another way realistic image scaling requires a lot of radiating area even at high frequencies where the wavelengths are small and even
more at the large wavelengths at the lowest frequencies. If these conditions are met in the loudspeakers and you loose or corrupt an absolute minimum of information in the rest of the reproduction chain a dipole design is no longer
desirable or necessary  as you are now hearing the ambient information that is present in the recording.
  Of course if the recording is truly dry it will sound more or less like the instruments playing are right there in the room with you in as much as there is no information present to recreate the space where the recording took place.
Accurate dynamic scaling with minimal compression also comes along for the ride when the above conditions are met if adequate power is available.
Scotty

 

[Housteau]

What is a WMTMW  loudspeaker?  I am not familiar with that acronym.

Dave

[Double Ugly]

What is a WMTMW  loudspeaker?  I am not familiar with that acronym.

Dave

W-Woofer
M-Midrange
T-Tweeter
M-Midrange
W-Woofer

[Russell Dawkins]

WMTMW = Wife May Think Me Weird

Actually woofer, mid, tweeter, mid, woofer (top to bottom)