We certainly agree the speakers disappear in our two cases (you with your 708p and me with my 308p (both JBL)), and it's perhaps a little true what you say re headphone sound, but that's only because the speakers disappear and I feel totally engulfed by the musical stage - it spreads within me and all around to the sides - it's an imaginary soundfield that is a result of the music design and fact that the speakers dissolve (no sensation of two point sources). On some tracks there are effects that even reach behind my head - I think this is on tracks where they have purposefully baked in HRTF effects into the music, so they've probably used some kind of generic HRTF to simulate effects moving behind the head. Crazily there was this one track from Massive Attack where there was one effect that was doing a figure 8 motion (lying on it's side, infinity symbol) behind my head (so height effects baked in too). Now some of these baked in HRTF effects are very dependant on how attentive I'm being and how involved I am in the music, and it doesn't always work to the same extent on each listen - I don't do drugs by the way, lol! I've noticed similar effects in some tracks by other artists too, Aurora's Forgotten Love is one example that comes to mind; but, yeah, you can do a lot with two channel with the right system (and highly dependant on the tracks).This is weird because I agree with your comments about not wanting sound that easily comes from the speaker. I have the JBL 708P which, in stereo, I find that the speakers disappear but you have very little front to back cues and I get more of a headphone like sensation.
With the Meyer, the speakers disappear in stereo, the center focus wasn’t as crisp actually but it may be the FR, but it feels like the walls of my room just moved back a lot!
I think the “spatial” effects from the room reflections that make it sound bigger in mono are different in stereo. You do get outside the speaker effects too, which I have been told is achieved with phase effects.
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