May I ask why a wide dispersion speaker is preferred?

[xykreinov]

As is commonly said, it depends.

If speakers were lamps...

Omni - bare light bulb
Wide - floodlight
Narrow - spotlight

Each has its place.

This is a great analogy. However (not to criticize it), it doesn't differentiate between a possessed inherent potential and a possessed inherent quality.
See, if you have floodlight and a spotlight that use the same light bulb, it's guaranteed that the spotlight will be brighter- just in a smaller area.
Yet, with a speaker, there are no guarantees that narrow dispersion is going to be more detailed than wide dispersion. You cannot rely on dispersion alone to engineer a good sounding speaker.
However, should all be created equal (drivers, engineering prowess, well treated listening room, etc.), narrow dispersion has a greater potential to sound better than wide dispersion. It's just not a characteristic of high quality sound in it of itself.

 

[Duke]

However, should all be created equal (drivers, engineering prowess, well treated listening room, etc.), narrow dispersion has a greater potential to sound better than wide dispersion. It's just not a characteristic of high quality sound in it of itself.

If I may drag polydirectionals back onto the stage...

Once upon a time I manufactured two loudspeakers with identical drivers and functionally identical crossovers, but very different radiation patterns. So, apples-to-apples (or darn close), except for the radiation patterns.

One was a narrow-pattern speaker with a large prosound midwoofer and a horn-loaded compression driver. Constant-directivity waveguide-style horn, with pattern matching in the crossover region (conceptually similar to the drivers in the Dutch & Dutch 8c, but larger).

The other was a bipolar version of the first: There was another identical horn and another identical woofer on the back of the cabinet. So the direct sound was virtually identical, but the bioplar was putting twice as much energy into the reverberant field.

Given proper placement, I can't recall anyone who heard both preferring the monopole version.

In my opinion, it's not quite as simple as narrow pattern vs wide pattern.

 

[Chromatischism]

@Duke what do you think of Spatial Audio's designs? Seem to be up your alley.

 

[xykreinov]

If I may drag polydirectionals back onto the stage...

Once upon a time I manufactured two loudspeaker with identical drivers and functionally identical crossovers, but very different radiation patterns. So, apples-to-apples (or darn close), except for the radiation patterns.

One was a narrow-pattern speaker with a large prosound midwoofer and a horn-loaded compression driver. Constant-directivity waveguide-style horn, with pattern matching in the crossover region (conceptually similar to the drivers in the Dutch & Dutch 8c, but larger).

The other was a bipolar version of the first: There was another identical horn and another identical woofer on the back of the cabinet. So the direct sound was virtually identical, but the bioplar was putting twice as much energy into the reverberant field.

Given proper placement, I can't recall anyone who heard both preferring the monopole version.

Ah, I didn't think of polydirectionals.
While I still think what I said generally holds true for monopoles, I'm not surprised that a bipolar equivalent sounds better

 

[Duke]

@Duke what do you think of Spatial Audio's designs?

I absolutely HATE competing against them!

I have yet to hear a Spatial model that sounded anything less than superb, especially in its price range. And this is with me LOOKING and LISTENING FOR something wrong with them.

Clayton and I are friends. I was a dealer for him back in the early days of Emerald Physics. He is REALLY good, and I trust and respect his design choices.

Much as I hate them!!

(Seriously, I'm arrogant enough to not be intimidated by very many of my competitors, but stepping into the ring with Clayton is intimidating.)

Ah, I didn't think of polydirectionals.
While I still think what I said generally holds true for monopoles, I'm not surprised that a bipolar equivalent sounds better

I agree with your observations about narrow pattern monopoles being generally preferable to wide pattern monopoles.

But in a professionally-treated room, ime wide pattern CAN sound better: The first sidewall reflections are relatively benign but still widen the soundstage, and there is still a lot of beneficial later-arriving spectrally-correct reflections.

Given sufficient distance out into the room (minimum of five feet between speaker and wall) ime a controlled-pattern bipole has some of the desirable characteristics that a good wide-pattern speaker has in a professionally-treated room. But if placed too close to the wall behind it, clarity starts to be degraded. Whether it originates from a monopole or bipole or something else, ime TOO MUCH reflected energy TOO EARLY is bad for clarity, even if it is spectrally correct.

 

[whazzup]

If I may drag polydirectionals back onto the stage...

Once upon a time I manufactured two loudspeakers with identical drivers and functionally identical crossovers, but very different radiation patterns. So, apples-to-apples (or darn close), except for the radiation patterns.

One was a narrow-pattern speaker with a large prosound midwoofer and a horn-loaded compression driver. Constant-directivity waveguide-style horn, with pattern matching in the crossover region (conceptually similar to the drivers in the Dutch & Dutch 8c, but larger).

The other was a bipolar version of the first: There was another identical horn and another identical woofer on the back of the cabinet. So the direct sound was virtually identical, but the bioplar was putting twice as much energy into the reverberant field.

Given proper placement, I can't recall anyone who heard both preferring the monopole version.

In my opinion, it's not quite as simple as narrow pattern vs wide pattern.

Thank you for the awesome information! Sounds like I've been doing a poor man's version of bipolar speakers (bottom speakers as front firing and the white ones as rear firing, didn't know there's a term for it) to get around the nearfield-ness of desktop setups and my small room....

How my speakers are set up now. Prefer the larger, more spacious sound, especially when I turn off the rear firing speakers and hear the tinier sound from only the fronts.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...re-your-speakers-backwards.14968/#post-491523

 

[MattHooper]

For me in terms of room interaction it's always been a bit of a struggle between the room effects on spaciousness vs the effect on the tone/timbre of sound through speakers.

For instance one of my first big floor standers was the Von Schweikert VR 4 Gen 2 speakers, which employed a rear firing ambiance tweeter that you could dial up or down. Dialing up did indeed increase the sense of an expanding soundstage/spaciousness. But the more I turned it up the more I also perceived an effect on the tone of the sound, a lightening and homogenizing a bit of the timbre, sort of like taking a color photograph and lightly spraying a scrim of white paint over the photo to slightly mute the colors. So I often had it turned well down, just enough to add a little to the spaciousness.

It's similar with my room effects. Too much reflection and what I gain in spaciousness tends to be subtracted by a slightly less rich and nuanced tonal character among instruments and voices. Though, get the balance just right and it can keep most of the tonal nuance of, say, a sax but edge it to sounding a bit more there and real.

 

[Trdat]

Thanks, some surprising (to me) info in there.

BTW, who is "Matt" in that video. Apparently he does some reviews? For what site, audioholics?

AudioNirvana forum.

 

[Chromatischism]

For me in terms of room interaction it's always been a bit of a struggle between the room effects on spaciousness vs the effect on the tone/timbre of sound through speakers.

For instance one of my first big floor standers was the Von Schweikert VR 4 Gen 2 speakers, which employed a rear firing ambiance tweeter that you could dial up or down. Dialing up did indeed increase the sense of an expanding soundstage/spaciousness. But the more I turned it up the more I also perceived an effect on the tone of the sound, a lightening and homogenizing a bit of the timbre, sort of like taking a color photograph and lightly spraying a scrim of white paint over the photo to slightly mute the colors. So I often had it turned well down, just enough to add a little to the spaciousness.

It's similar with my room effects. Too much reflection and what I gain in spaciousness tends to be subtracted by a slightly less rich and nuanced tonal character among instruments and voices. Though, get the balance just right and it can keep most of the tonal nuance of, say, a sax but edge it to sounding a bit more there and real.

I don't have rear-firing speakers but I'm finding I don't like a lot of reflections in my room. It may be that it's just too small and that to enjoy it better I need a much larger space.

 

[dasdoing]

I agree with you in principle but have the urge to minor-quibble about one of the specifics:

My understanding is that the location of the "phantom speaker" in this case would be 60 cm beyond the wall, not between the wall and the real speaker. Scroll down to the third image at this link:

https://realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm

So the implication is that the midpoint between the real speaker and the phantom speaker would be AT the wall, IF it matched the direct sound in strength. Which it does not (unless the speaker is omnidirectional and the wall is 100% reflective), so imo the "effective midpoint" IS in between the real speaker and the wall... and you may even be right about its typical location (midway between speaker and wall).

you mean figure 4 right? the source of the reflection is not behind the wall, it is at the wall. so the "phantom speaker" is on the axis of direct and reflected source.....more to the direct then to the reflected, since it is louder