What do you consider " pay attention to what the sound is doing off axis"? Just because a designer does not follow the trend shown in F. Toole research does not mean he is not "paying attention" or "off axis is not important"
Interesting thread. One of the things I noticed when I went from Martin Logan to my Wilson's was how good the Wilson's sounded, no matter where I sat in the room. With the ML's I had to sit in the sweet spot, else the sound suffered.
Interesting thread. One of the things I noticed when I went from Martin Logan to my Wilson's was how good the Wilson's sounded, no matter where I sat in the room. With the ML's I had to sit in the sweet spot, else the sound suffered.
Martin Logan speakers do many things very well, but their horizontal dispersion is admittedly limited. They attempt to overcome this by the curve of some of their ES panels, but they are known by many listeners as "head in a vice" speakers since when you move outside of their relatively narrow sweet spot the sonic performance drops off considerably. Magnepan planar magnetic speakers on the other hand offer very good horizontal dispersion by comparison. As with most things in high end audio component selection often comes down to a series of tradeoffs, and selecting those that you are willing to live with and whose strengths meet your sonic preferences most effectively.
Martin Logan speakers do many things very well, but their horizontal dispersion is admittedly limited. They attempt to overcome this by the curve of some of their ES panels, but they are known by many listeners as "head in a vice" speakers since when you move outside of their relatively narrow sweet spot the sonic performance drops off considerably. Magnepan planar magnetic speakers on the other hand offer very good horizontal dispersion by comparison. As with most things in high end audio component selection often comes down to a series of tradeoffs, and selecting those that you are willing to live with and whose strengths meet your sonic preferences most effectively.
totally agree, but the orig Quad ELS takes the cake for the head in a vise experience. imo, the curvilinear panel does practically nothing to widen the sweet spot, but I like it that way I listen solo anyhow. I find the speaker interacts much less with room boundaries and I get more direct vs. reflected sound, stereo images are sharp and tightly focused.
totally agree, but the orig Quad ELS takes the cake for the head in a vise experience. imo, the curvilinear panel does practically nothing to widen the sweet spot, but I like it that way I listen solo anyhow. I find the speaker interacts much less with room boundaries and I get more direct vs. reflected sound, stereo images are sharp and tightly focused.
That is definitely one of the advantages of limited horizontal dispersion, more direct and less reflected sound resulting in a very well focused image. I have heard the CLS speakers sound absolutely spectacular in the right setup!
totally agree, but the orig Quad ELS takes the cake for the head in a vise experience. imo, the curvilinear panel does practically nothing to widen the sweet spot, but I like it that way I listen solo anyhow. I find the speaker interacts much less with room boundaries and I get more direct vs. reflected sound, stereo images are sharp and tightly focused.
I'd think we agree that the audio hobby is very much a solitary endeavor so a small window doesn't faze me
OTOH, you can argue about the panel's solidity and imaging. I still don't feel that the panels--as good as you can get them and it can be quite good--image like say a Wilson W/P or Sasha (at in the horizontal plane). And I've owned both Maggies and presently MLs.
And listening to the Quad 57s is like listening thru a mail slot.
I've got rock solid 180 degrees. I have a funny trick I pull on friends. I make them walk from in front of the speakers to right between them. I then make them turnaround and face the rear of the room. The stage rotates and seems to be coming from the rear wall. Lots of head scratching with that one.
