Hi werd,
Since every room has a fundamental resonance and its harmonics (for each of the three dimensions), every room requires these be addressed if one is to optimize playback in that room.
And every room (outside of a padded cell ;-}) will have reflection points (one for each speaker, per room boundary). These too need to be addressed for optimal playback.
What Martin Logans and other dipolar radiators have in common is that they tend to excite the room primarily in the front-to-back dimension. Planars will radiate very little energy to the sides or vertically.
This does not obviate the need for treatment but it does mean there is less room excitation in the side to side and vertical planes - with planars or with the planar section of MLs. However, since most of their models use quasi-omni monopole (i.e. box) bass, this puts those ML models in the same place as full-range quasi-omni monopoles in that all three dimensions will be excited.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com
While all of this is true, I've yet to hear a panel speaker of any kind that didn't benefit from being further away from the wall rather than closer....
If there's any way you can put 4-6 feet between your Magnepans or ML's and the side walls, you will be rewarded with a much bigger soundfield, than placing them close to a wall, even with room treatments.
