I'm critical of claims that omnidirectional (or wide-directivity) speakers are inherently lower-
fidelity than conventional monopoles because the "added" in-room reflections they produce create some kind of (possibly euphonic) "distortion".
For those making such an argument, there seem to me to be only two possible frameworks:
- The idea that any reflection is a form of distortion, thus the lower in level reflections are, the higher the fidelity.
- The idea that, although reflections are not inherently distorting, there is some "most correct" DI for a loudspeaker (or perhaps some maximum tolerable ratio of direct to reflected sound) such that any level of reflected sound that exceeds this ideal constitutes "distortion".
The problem with (1) is that it implies that the narrower the directivity of the speaker and the more absorptive the room, the higher the fidelity of the reproduction. Its logical conclusion must be that only an anechoic environment is suitable for the highest possible fidelity playback. That's an interesting idea, but I don't think it's what most people have in mind when they say that omni speakers are lower-fidelity than conventional speakers.
The problem with (2) is that any particular choice of loudspeaker DI or room acoustics must be made with reference to information that is not present in the signal. Recordings just do not contain information about the off-axis response of the loudspeaker or the acoustical properties of the listening room.
Interesting points.
I confess my own skeptical hackles start rising whenever I see broad denunciations like "X speaker can never accurately convey the recording/live sound." Because this gets down the rabbit hole of "accurate to what exactly, and to what degree is X actually departing?" By nature, audio hobbyists (not to mention engineers who are often opinionated) may make mountains out of mole-hills.
The first thing I'd say is that I'd been listening to my MBLs right up until I got my Joseph Audio Speakers, and when I put in the JA speakers I was frankly stunned at how much they sounded like the MBLs, tonally, spatially, the clarity. That actually pleased me because it felt like I'd just got much of what I liked in the MBLs, but with a bigger (deeper bass) sound. Now, as it turned out, no, the Joseph speakers like any other forward radiating box speaker can't truly match the MBLs in some of the ways I described. But for a normal box speaker, wow. The point being, I didn't find there to be some huge divide in the sonic presentation as if the MBLs were shown up as "so much less accurate."
The second thing is that, the way I have my room treated and set up, I can really play around with live/dead sound. So if I kept the room lively, yes I'd get tons more room reflection in the sound. It would sound even more "live" with the musicians "in the room" ("They Are Here" sound), where deadening surfaces would bring out more of the ambience in the recording (more "You Are There" character). But this is exactly the same for pretty much every other speaker I've owned. It's exactly the same type of differences I get playing with acoustics when I set up my Thiels or Joseph speakers in the same room. So broad generalisations about how room reflections will swamp things out for an omni have to be mitigated by the nature of the room in which you place them.
And I could play with the apparent room sound/recorded sound mix as I wanted. Like I've described before: Leaving the room live would give more of an impression of the vocalists/instruments brought in to my room. Making it more dead, the soundtage/reverb, say of a live recording in a hall, would take precedent, more like I was peering through the speakers to the recording's acoustic. Where I generally liked to dial the liveness back in to the room just enough so that the sound "opened up" with more "air" but the recorded acoustic predominated. So a classical guitar recording would sound like it's in the hall captured in the recording, but it was like the whole back of my room BECAME that hall. Again, this is just how I dial in my non-omnis as well.
But generally speaking, if on the MBLs I played any of countless tracks I'm familar with, say Talk Talk's Happiness Is Easy, and someone tried to tell me "you aren't hearing that recording accurately" I'd frankly be fairly confused. What, precisely, would I not be hearing? Ever instrument, the drums, the stand up bass, the piano, the flashes of acoustic guitar, the vocal...everything appears in PRECISELY the same "spot" - e.g. acoustic guitar just left of and in front of the bass - as through my other speakers. I could point right to where each image will appear. So it tells me the right sonic information about the mixing/imaging. Will I not hear the reverb used on the vocals, drums, flashes of acoustic guitar etc? Of course I do. It's all there, the very exact nature of the reverbs used, as it is on my other speakers. And if a vocal is recorded super "dry" and "close up" it just appears "dry" and "in the room" just as on my Thiels or Joseph speakers. If the vocals are recorded with verb and depth...that's how they sound and image. I can't think of a thing the MBLs didn't tell me about recordings that my more conventional speakers let me hear.
The main thing was the MBLs tended to sound just that much more "boxless," like an electrostatic, but the images, accurately placed, had a sense of "thereness" and roundness about them.
If someone says "the MBLs image TOO WIDE"...that's not what I heard. Also, the size and width of the soundstage and imaging can be influenced in how widely you space your speakers relative to the listener. Sometimes I'll space my Joseph speakers somewhat close together for a really dense/punchy imaging sound. Sometimes I'll spread them waaay apart where I get more of an immersion effect. Is that now inaccurate?
Well, it sounds "bigger" but all the instruments have the same imaging relationship with one another, just as making a picture bigger makes for a bigger image, but maintaining the same fidelity to relationships in the picture. Which is more "accurate" and why "should" one choose one over the other?
Anyway, my main point being that I take claims like "Omnis can't be ACCURATE" with a grain of salt because, out of experience, if even if they are deviating from someone's standard of "accurate," the result is that I perceived essentially the same characteristics from recording to recording (essentially as much variation) as I did with my other speakers. In fact, I'm not sure any speaker I've owned sounded so much like sonic chameleons, the way the sound could shrink and expand with recordings depending on the recorded acoustics.
