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It's never as simple as one variable, but instead a culmination of many variables. Two major considerations that factor into a speaker being able to 'disappear' completely are elimination of cabinet resonances and cabinet edge diffraction. Both resonances and edge diffraction act as separate point sources that are purely distortion components and out of phase/time with the signal coming from the drivers. And they arrive to your ears close enough in time that your brain isn't able to disassociate them with the first arrival - end result is they make the speaker sound colored or smeared. That's one of the few examples that's easy to comprehend logically. Things like you menion, radiaton pattern of a MT vs a MTM are much harder to comprehend and correlate to subjective listening experience. My experience says that there's no 'winner' in that no single driver layout results in a superior soundstage. Even when you look at radiaton patterns as polars, I haven't been able to perfectly correlate one as ideal. Certainly there are things you can see in a polar that will indicate problems, such as greatly narrowing power response at/around the crossover point. But I've built speakers before that measured for all intents identical on/off axis with completely different crossover topologies, but one network has the 'magic' and the other is flat in comparison. My suspicion there is that more insight could be found by further investigation of the two designs in the time domain which is totally different than the data gathered by taking frequency response. It's my opinion that there are a few things that should be a part of every speaker design - a dead cabinet, minimizing edge diffraction, smooth and even power response, using drivers that perform very well within their pass band, and implementing a crossover that is clean in the time domain. But even once you do all these things, there's still a component of art that come into finding the perfect final solution. Every driver needs to be treated differently, and you never know what that is until you build a finished system as listen. So with every design it's science while on the drawing board, and once you actually build it, the focus turns more to the art of voicing. That's a long way of saying that there's no one single answer, it's a lot of things that each play their part ... and if the designer does things right, they all work together in the final result. Now one thing I can suggest that often makes smaller monitor speakers sound bigger than they are is to simply tilt the speaker back 3-5 degrees. Many monitors have a forward radiation lobe that angles downward, pulling the soundstage down toward the floor slightly ... MTM's should (if executed correctly) have a lobe that is perpendicular to the plane of the speaker (so not angled down). By tilting the monitor back slightly, you can raise the forward lobe up and in the process the height of it's soundstage.
Two additional factors are seriously important for great no box sound imaging (at least to my ears). One is time alignment of drivers and the other is complete felting of the front of the speaker or at least directly around the mid and high freq driver. I find that felting the whole baffle helps.
To me it is: Line Array or emanate sound to from the front and back(Dipole).Of course, a Dipole Line Array would had great soundstage.
To add to the above, to improve soundstage: keep the crossover away from 2,500 - 3,000 Hz where the ear is most sensitive to phase confusions, use first order crossovers, keep drivers close together, and use a tweeter wave guide so dispersion of tweeter and woofer(s) match at crossover.
Agree but those two designs usually means that it will require a larger space to take advantage of, in which case i just dont have. I do prefer small package but large sound. That seems to give greater impression
Thanks, what do you mean by felting the baffles?
Some of the best imaging/soundstaging I've heard has come from two-ways, so I wouldn't think the MTM alone makes the difference, it just accounts for lower distortion and higher sensitivity (with two speakers designed by the same person using similar everything).... you're talking about two different speakers with different crossovers and different drivers. They just won't sound the same.I would say that the way in which a speaker reacts with the room has everything to do with the soundstage that's thrown. A lack of compression helps things sound 'live' and a lack of room issues and reflections (including diffraction) help create better imaging and soundstage.
Putting felt, foam, or any other absorptive stuff on the baffle helps lower diffraction ... same as I mentioned above. But the only way to totally eliminate it is with a BIG roundover, 2" or more. That's why my Cirrus front profile is shaped the way it is, the edges have a 3.5" roundover designed in.
Turbo, Problem is, most speakers don't cross over that low (to avoid dispersion issues), and most designers don't seem to know how to design a crossover (phasing issues). Overall,Much of this discussion hinges on what good soundstaging is. Flame away, but IMO dipoles (including open baffles, planars, line arrays) can't properly image/soundstage. But that depends on what you want (pin point or wall of sound presentation).
You are absolutely correct, sir, regards speakers with conventional tweeters. However, I would submit that if genuine wool felt is used in a proper density because of its ability to absorb and dissipate waveforms to damp speaker baffles, it, too, would neutralize diffraction. But, your speakers sure do look better! Really gorgeous they are.
