what kind of speaker has the largest sweet spot?

sts9fan · « **on:** 8 Jan 2007, 04:39 pm »

So I am looking to upgrade my speakers in the near future and I want to go with something that created a LARGE sweetspot. I like to have lots of offaxis response so I would assume a dipole would be good. Any suggestions?

bpape · « **Reply #1 on:** 8 Jan 2007, 04:43 pm »

The combination of an open baffle coupled with a coax driver gives great results. Look at the Nomad Ronin.

Bryan

BobM · « **Reply #2 on:** 8 Jan 2007, 04:46 pm »

The philosophy that Joseph D'Appoloto used when coming up with the MTM design was to reduce the vertical dispersion of the tweeter commonly found in most 2 or 3 way speakers using a tweeter-mid-woofer design. Surrounding the tweeter with 2 mid/bass drivers achieved this, but also tended to flatten out the horizontal dispersion as well, resulting in a larger sweet spot.

I have MTM's and found this to be true, generally, but only if the speakers are firing straight forward, and not toed in toward the listener. There is still a better image when sitting right in the middle, but generally you can still hear the L-R soundtage sitting to either side too.

I've also heard large sweetspots coming from line arrays, again better in the middle but still nice to either side also.

This says nothing of imaging though, which I find to be more dependent on room treatments than the design of the speaker itself.

Enjoy,
Bob

JLM · « **Reply #3 on:** 8 Jan 2007, 11:37 pm »

Omni-directional speakers, those with up-firing mid/woofers and front firing tweeters for instance can produce images that fill the room like a big cloud hanging above you.

Dipoles produce big images too, but like the omni-directionals they require the listener to be a fair distance away for the big image to develop.

JohninCR · « **Reply #4 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 12:00 am »

Properly done Line Arrays. They have an "area" of prime listening instead of a spot. This is because their SPL decreases by only 3db per doubling of distance vs a point source speaker that is -6db per distance doubled. Since distance has half the effect, being off center (closer to one speaker than the other) has far less effect.

John Ashman · « **Reply #5 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 12:14 am »

Speakers with small midrange drivers tend to have great sweetspots. Dipoles typically do not. Omni directional speakers can, but often sound different from position to position because of the influence of the wall behind them. Line arrays work well because of their power response but often don't use wide dispersion drive units, so it's not a guarantee.

One of the speakers most famous for it's large sweetspot is the NHT Xd. It has a nearly perfect hemispherical radiation pattern and it's sweetspot is undeniably enormous.

tonyptony · « **Reply #6 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 12:38 am »

Quote from: sts9fan on 8 Jan 2007, 04:39 pm

So I am looking to upgrade my speakers in the near future and I want to go with something that created a LARGE sweetspot. I like to have lots of offaxis response so I would assume a dipole would be good. Any suggestions?

sts, how much are you looking to spend? I agree with what John Ashman said above, but if your room is reasonably well controlled I would strongly recommend you try one of Shahinian's "polyradial" designs (a variant of omnidirectional). Beautiful music, period. There are two pairs of Obelisks on Audiogon right now for sale.

John Ashman · « **Reply #7 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 12:53 am »

Tony, I'd only caution that I think that Shahinians only sound better than average when playing classical music or maybe light jazz. I find them to be very quirky, even problematic with their tonal balance and so buying them sound unheard is very sketchy. Mirage omnipolars are probably safer. Also, I find that Shahinians fetch surprisingly high prices so aren't generally a great used value if you're not a Shahiniac. IOW, the following for them is fervent, but very small.

eril · « **Reply #8 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 02:03 am »

I have had 2 pairs of Jean-Marie Reynaud speakers.
The Trentes and now the Evolution 3's.
They have the tweeter in a baffle separate from the main body of the speaker and use a brass cone centred in the middle of the tweeter.
This gives very broad dispersion of sound.
To my experience they are good to great off-axis, almost anywhere in my large room.
See: http://www.jm-reynaud.com/jmr_us/archives/evolution3.html

SET Man · « **Reply #9 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 02:33 am »

Hey!

Hmmm... how about Bose 901 "Stereo everywhere" speaker!

Anyway, maybe one of these "Omi-directional" beauty will do for you.

I've heard the "Bella Luna" I think at one of NY Raver's place. And they are beautiful. And with the Omi design the sound is very expansive as expected. although I do find them to sound a bit fuzzy. Not my kind of sound. Still very nice speaker but ain't cheap.

Well, good luck.

Take care,
Buddy

jules · « **Reply #10 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 02:40 am »

You could consider something with a dome mid.

jules

Steve Eddy · « **Reply #11 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 02:44 am »

Horns.

At least from the low mids on up.

Horns can give you well-controlled directivity allowing for a large sweet spot but narrow enough that you're not spraying sound in all directions, significantly reducing first reflections off the sidewalls, floor and ceiling.

Check out something like Yorkville's Unity series (designed by Tom Danley). They use a 60 x 60 conical horn coupled to a 1.75" compression driver and three ceramic cone drivers to not only give well-controlled directivity from 300 Hz on up, but it also behaves as a time aligned point source.

se

dwk · « **Reply #12 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 03:03 am »

Quote from: Steve Eddy on 9 Jan 2007, 02:44 am

Horns.

At least from the low mids on up.

Horns can give you well-controlled directivity allowing for a large sweet spot but narrow enough that you're not spraying sound in all directions, significantly reducing first reflections off the sidewalls, floor and ceiling.

Check out something like Yorkville's Unity series (designed by Tom Danley). They use a 60 x 60 conical horn coupled to a 1.75" compression driver and three ceramic cone drivers to not only give well-controlled directivity from 300 Hz on up, but it also behaves as a time aligned point source.

se

Well, Steve, thanks for the segue. I had a partial reply typed earlier but canned it, but since you've posted this I guess I'll have to continue.

I actually use the U15 as my home speaker, and I can verify that the controlled directivity idea delivers in practice. I have a tough narrow room, with the speakers placed in the corners. By orienting them so that the main axes cross in front of the listening position, you get a very broad sweet spot - I can move laterally more or less from speaker to speaker whild maintaining a decent presentation. The idea is that as you move laterally you are moving farther off-axis from the nearer speaker, and conversely you are moving closer on-axis to the farther speaker. The two effects cancel out to a degree, leaving a pretty stable image.
In my specific case the price that is paid is that the image is slighly center-weighted compared to a holographic mini-monitor, although the speakers still disappear and aren't localizable.

BTW - Tom didn't actually design the Yorkville Unities - Todd Michael of Yorkville did the design mostly independently based on Tom's theory and designs. I have never heard Toms originals, but I'm extremely happy with the Yorkvilles.

Steve Eddy · « **Reply #13 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 03:16 am »

Quote from: dwk on 9 Jan 2007, 03:03 am

Well, Steve, thanks for the segue. I had a partial reply typed earlier but canned it, but since you've posted this I guess I'll have to continue.

And I'm glad you did.

Quote

I actually use the U15 as my home speaker, and I can verify that the controlled directivity idea delivers in practice. I have a tough narrow room, with the speakers placed in the corners. By orienting them so that the main axes cross in front of the listening position, you get a very broad sweet spot - I can move laterally more or less from speaker to speaker whild maintaining a decent presentation. The idea is that as you move laterally you are moving farther off-axis from the nearer speaker, and conversely you are moving closer on-axis to the farther speaker. The two effects cancel out to a degree, leaving a pretty stable image.
In my specific case the price that is paid is that the image is slighly center-weighted compared to a holographic mini-monitor, although the speakers still disappear and aren't localizable.

Thanks!

What can you say about their performance in other respects? Also, are you listening to them without the metal grilles?

Some years ago I began a quest for some new reference speakers, but I'm still sitting here with an old pair of Quatre 4000s after having given away my previous reference speakers to my sister's boyfriend. I've really been attracted to Tom's SH-50s, but they're a bit out of my price range at the moment but I really need to get SOMETHING and was thinking a pair of U215s would suffice for the time being.

Quote

BTW - Tom didn't actually design the Yorkville Unities - Todd Michael of Yorkville did the design mostly independently based on Tom's theory and designs. I have never heard Toms originals, but I'm extremely happy with the Yorkvilles.

You're right. "Design" was a bad choice of words on my part. Basically Tom just licensed his technology to Yorkville and I think provided them with some consulting.

se

JohninCR · « **Reply #14 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 04:21 am »

Sorry guys, but he did ask "biggest" and simple physics indicates line array. It's really not even a close call. Horizontal directivity issues apply the same as they do for point sources. Of course arrays aren't without their compromises with the primary ones being distortion in the size of the image and driver costs to do it right. No other speaker fills a room with sound more evenly, whether it's an arena or home listening room, and they're as different from point source speakers as open baffle speakers are from boxes.

Steve Eddy · « **Reply #15 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 04:31 am »

Quote from: JohninCR on 9 Jan 2007, 04:21 am

Sorry guys, but he did ask "biggest" and simple physics indicates line array.

Well, actually he said "largest."

Anyway, if his criteria is purely quantitative, then there's his answer.

se

konut · « **Reply #16 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 04:54 am »

That would depend on your definition of 'sweet' and 'speaker'. aa

JohninCR · « **Reply #17 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 04:59 am »

Steve,

You got me. Sorry if I tend to be too black and white at times. I haven't graduated to horns, yet, so I control directivity via OB's.

Steve Eddy · « **Reply #18 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 05:52 am »

Quote from: JohninCR on 9 Jan 2007, 04:59 am

You got me. Sorry if I tend to be too black and white at times. I haven't graduated to horns, yet, so I control directivity via OB's.

Wasn't tryin' to get you or anything. I don't really know exactly what his criteria may be so I was just basically agreeing with you on the point that you'd made.

se

Steve Eddy · « **Reply #19 on:** 9 Jan 2007, 05:57 am »

Quote from: konut on 9 Jan 2007, 04:54 am

That would depend on your definition of 'sweet' and 'speaker'. aa

Hehehe. Quite so. And all I can say is that when it comes to defining "sweet" and "speaker," this one isn't among any of mine.

se