Recommend speakers that disappear

[Heinrich]

If you sit in front of the left or right speaker and hear the phantom center as coming from between the speakers with no cues from the speaker you are sitting in front of, you have system where the speakers ”disappear”.

Once the speakers disappeared, what to do to make them reappear? In theory the stereo effect, including the dead center phantom, relies on the horizontal orientation of the head with its two ears relative to the speakers. A sufficiently wide turn of the head should therefore make or break the presence of the speakers. An interested listener could hence switch the desired property on/off easily. Nobody ever did that with any success (impossible to make them disappear a second time).

I think it is consensus that the speakers 'disappear' if simply the music takes over, switch mental focus. I read it in between the lines (replace 'stereo' with 'music'). Question is, how much effort it takes from the listener's side. It's a personal thing in the end. Good technical performance helps a lot, that's for sure. How believable the presentation is. But only, if the cheap cable doesn't spoil the experience, subjectively speaking ;-}

 

[goat76]

If you sit in front of the left or right speaker and hear the phantom center as coming from between the speakers with no cues from the speaker you are sitting in front of, you have system where the speakers ”disappear”.

That will only happen with extreme toe-in. Would you have your speakers set up that way even if you were always listening to music on your own sitting in the sweet spot?

 

[Thomas_A]

That will only happen with extreme toe-in. Would you have your speakers set up that way even if you were always listening to music on your own sitting in the sweet spot?

What is extreme toe-in? I do have around 40 degree with my speakers meaning that they cross in front of me and not at the ears. It works fine at sweet-spot according to my own preferences. Image is wide and deep.

 

[Thomas_A]

Once the speakers disappeared, what to do to make them reappear? In theory the stereo effect, including the dead center phantom, relies on the horizontal orientation of the head with its two ears relative to the speakers. A sufficiently wide turn of the head should therefore make or break the presence of the speakers. An interested listener could hence switch the desired property on/off easily. Nobody ever did that with any success (impossible to make them disappear a second time).

I think it is consensus that the speakers 'disappear' if simply the music takes over, switch mental focus. I read it in between the lines (replace 'stereo' with 'music'). Question is, how much effort it takes from the listener's side. It's a personal thing in the end. Good technical performance helps a lot, that's for sure. How believable the presentation is. But only, if the cheap cable doesn't spoil the experience, subjectively speaking ;-}

Stereo is limited, always. When the music type allows I switch on height and surround speakers for extra ”disapperance” effect, but it is just more of width and depth sensation, and not the reality.

 

[Keith_W]

What is extreme toe-in?

Ishiwata toe-in.

 

[goat76]

What is extreme toe-in? I do have around 40 degree with my speakers meaning that they cross in front of me and not at the ears. It works fine at sweet-spot according to my own preferences. Image is wide and deep.

Yes, that is the “extreme” toe-in I meant. I think you should have mentioned that you use that type of unusual extreme toe-in so that people with more conventional toe-in setups (you know on-axis or less that is more common) don't get the idea that the phantom center should stay in the middle even if they sit way off center.

I mean, don't you think the following thing you wrote gets a little bit misleading without explaining the extreme toe-in you use, instead you write it as if it would be a general indication of a system where the speakers will disappear.

If you sit in front of the left or right speaker and hear the phantom center as coming from between the speakers with no cues from the speaker you are sitting in front of, you have system where the speakers ”disappear”.

 

[Duke]

I think you should have mentioned that you use that type of unusual extreme toe-in so that people with more conventional toe-in setups (you know on-axis or less that is more common) don't get the idea that the phantom center should stay in the middle even if they sit way off center.

I mean, don't you think the following thing you wrote gets a little bit misleading without explaining the extreme toe-in you use, instead you write it as if it would be a general indication of a system where the speakers will disappear.

I knew exactly what @Thomas_A meant.

 

[Sokel]

I knew exactly what @Thomas_A meant.

I find most interesting what listener's position does.
I use to walk around the setup and the most fun effects are either between or behind the speakers as you walk in the center towards the front wall.

Specially just behind of them.I suppose it's a mix of early reflections very close to direct sound (mine are about 110cm from the wall usually and the wall is treated) along with the of-axis performance.
Chaotic but fun!

 

[goat76]

I knew exactly what @Thomas_A meant.

Great, but do you think everyone else reading this thread automatically understood that Thomas was talking about a setup with an "extreme" toe-in just based on the following sentence he wrote?

If you sit in front of the left or right speaker and hear the phantom center as coming from between the speakers with no cues from the speaker you are sitting in front of, you have system where the speakers ”disappear”.

Was I missing any additional information before he wrote that? If so, read back and tell me what I missed.

 

[Duke]

Great, but do you think everyone else reading this thread automatically understood that Thomas was talking about a setup with an "extreme" toe-in just based on the following sentence he wrote?

Was I missing any additional information before he wrote that? If so, read back and tell me what I missed.

I don't think he did anything wrong.

 

[Heinrich]

Was I missing any additional information before he wrote that? If so, read back and tell me what I missed.

The extreme toe-in, as you put it, wasn't the point. Me myself took a second reading, to understand. The central phantom image, as he put it, should be present even when sitting to one side of the stereo triangle, in front of a speaker:

"If you sit in front of the left or right speaker and hear the phantom center as coming from between the speakers with no cues from the speaker you are sitting in front of, you have system where the speakers ”disappear”."

That should be impossible, as I explained.

So, there is much speculation, sorry for that, but the term of 'disappearing' isn't well defined. The most convenient take on this marketing ploy, sorry again, is the personal engagement of the listener. Is it the stereo as such, or the music it delivers? In case you are pretty analytical, the position of the speakers is no mystery at all. Turn your head so much, and all the illusion needs to collapse, theoretically and practically. In order to lock in the stereo image, some individual effort has to be taken. Then it even survives a "no, no" shaking your head, while the theory states the contrary. Stereo is about betraying yourself. Who defines the how good? It is you.

Please, in all discussions, replace 'stereo' with 'music'. Stereo is a first hint on the music present. There's something in the air that takes shape. If unengaging music is playing, what do you expect? All this fancy stuff is made for a purpose. Do you remember?

 

[Duke]

The central phantom image, as he put it, should be present even when sitting to one side of the stereo triangle, in front of a speaker:

"If you sit in front of the left or right speaker and hear the phantom center as coming from between the speakers with no cues from the speaker you are sitting in front of, you have system where the speakers ”disappear”."

That should be impossible, as I explained.

Are you open to an explanation of how what @Thomas_A described is possible?

 

[jeffaegrim]

The extreme toe-in, as you put it, wasn't the point. Me myself took a second reading, to understand. The central phantom image, as he put it, should be present even when sitting to one side of the stereo triangle, in front of a speaker:

"If you sit in front of the left or right speaker and hear the phantom center as coming from between the speakers with no cues from the speaker you are sitting in front of, you have system where the speakers ”disappear”."

That should be impossible, as I explained.
[…]

Pre-emptively adding my 2c to the reply I anticipate @Duke to post next: I am sitting in front of a pair of speakers that presumes to do just that and it definitely sort of works with a constant directivity design.

The JBL Everest DD55000 whitepaper may be of some interest to you.

 

[goat76]

I don't think he did anything wrong.

No, there is nothing wrong with what he said per se, it's just that he shouldn't leave out the details of how he has set up his loudspeakers which is the main reason why he still hears the phantom center in the middle of the speakers, even when listening to them off-center. Everyone will achieve that same effect if they just set up their loudspeakers with the same extreme toe-in, but will everyone experience the disappearance of their speakers by doing that?

I have tried that type of extreme toe-in in my system before, but I can't say that I remember any particular sensation of the speakers disappearing more by doing that. The difference it made was that the phantom center would not totally collapse for listeners sitting off-center on the sofa, but the downside was a less defined/focused phantom center for a single listener in the absolute sweet spot. If I had to choose, I would never go for that type of "diffused disappearance" in favor of the more focused-sounding phantom center.

I don't think "downgrading" the overall sound and the fidelity should be needed in the hunt of having the loudspeakers "disappear", which I think both using an extreme toe-in setup would do to a single listener in the sweet spot (which truly is the only position where stereo works), as well as having an extremely high ratio of reflections in the listening room overshadowing the recorded information. When achieving a well-setup sound system capable of high-fidelity reproduction of music with reduced external noise and reflections from the listening environment, the loudspeakers will sometimes disappear depending on what the audio production contains, and thanks to the stereo illusion taking over what is heard instead of two loudspeakers in a room.

 

[Thomas_A]

No, there is nothing wrong with what he said per se, it's just that he shouldn't leave out the details of how he has set up his loudspeakers which is the main reason why he still hears the phantom center in the middle of the speakers, even when listening to them off-center. Everyone will achieve that same effect if they just set up their loudspeakers with the same extreme toe-in, but will everyone experience the disappearance of their speakers by doing that?

I have tried that type of extreme toe-in in my system before, but I can't say that I remember any particular sensation of the speakers disappearing more by doing that. The difference it made was that the phantom center would not totally collapse for listeners sitting off-center on the sofa, but the downside was a less defined/focused phantom center for a single listener in the absolute sweet spot. If I had to choose, I would never go for that type of "diffused disappearance" in favor of the more focused-sounding phantom center.

I don't think "downgrading" the overall sound and the fidelity should be needed in the hunt of having the loudspeakers "disappear", which I think both using an extreme toe-in setup would do to a single listener in the sweet spot (which truly is the only position where stereo works), as well as having an extremely high ratio of reflections in the listening room overshadowing the recorded information. When achieving a well-setup sound system capable of high-fidelity reproduction of music with reduced external noise and reflections from the listening environment, the loudspeakers will sometimes disappear depending on what the audio production contains, and thanks to the stereo illusion taking over what is heard instead of two loudspeakers in a room.

Detail (recording reflections and envelope) is IMO masked by uneven frequency response, especially the room effects < 500 Hz. Stereo imaging by first reflections in the direction from the speakers. When that is fixed, the ears and brain are very good hearing the details and positioning of instruments of the recording even though you have later reflections. They should just not be too high in level, but enough to compensate a bit for the stereo errors.

When it comes to toe in - it is needed to get more listeners getting a good response and when sitting off-sweet spot, which I do quite often. I kind of prefer that rather than sitting alone with my head absolutely fixed in the center. It's a preference, and a good compromise for film and TV watching since I do not use a center channel.

 

[Heinrich]

The JBL Everest DD55000 whitepaper may be of some interest to you.

Not as a critique, but do you see how an utterly diffuse, maybe even unsensical term of "disappearing speakers" brought us to discuss something else? The industry, including the magazines, does that all the time. Not the least the music (...) as the attention catcher is replaced by the stereo effect.

Why should I want to have the speakers disappear? The OP doesn't respond, so the question may be legal. One could say I love my speakers, they were expensive, ... I want to keep them in my mind when listening to the program material, I want them here. Could I train my ears and brain (sic!) to keep the un/reasonable imagination of my speakers playing regardless of the optimized stereo effect? I think this question is mandated by the infamous dialectical method--halfway serious about that. It prevents from falling for exaggerated promises made by the industry at least.

 

[jeffaegrim]

Not as a critique, but do you see how an utterly diffuse, maybe even unsensical term of "disappearing speakers" brought us to discuss something else? The industry, including the magazines, does that all the time. Not the least the music (...) as the attention catcher is replaced by the stereo effect.
[…]

Absolutely agree - without clearly defined terms, this discussion didn’t serve to satisfy much scientific curiosity at all. It was interesting from the point of view of different interpretations of the same vague-ish premise, I guess

 

[Duke]

I have tried that type of extreme toe-in in my system before, but I can't say that I remember any particular sensation of the speakers disappearing more by doing that. The difference it made was that the phantom center would not totally collapse for listeners sitting off-center on the sofa, but the downside was a less defined/focused phantom center for a single listener in the absolute sweet spot. If I had to choose, I would never go for that type of "diffused disappearance" in favor of the more focused-sounding phantom center.

Ime a fair amount of radiation pattern control is required before time/intensity trading works well. I have never had it work well with conventional cone-n-dome speakers, nor with any speakers that have a wide-dispersion tweeter. I have had it work well with speakers that use a good waveguide, as well as with speakers that use a small, well-behaved wideband driver for the top end.

Eyeballing @Thomas_A's avatar, it looks to me like his speakers use a small-diameter wideband driver for the top end, along with felt that is thick enough to actually be effective, and then his front baffle has nice large bevels along with a non-rectangular face which further reduces the already minimal edge diffraction effects. The increased directivity of the wideband drivers would further reduce the illumination of the cabinet edges. The tilt-back of his front baffle improves the time-domain blending of the two drivers, and reduces internal standing waves. Imo his is a very thorough design.

And more to the point of this thread, the above mentioned characteristics all reduce undesirable cabinet edge diffraction effects, which tend to degrade the spatial quality and can keep speakers from "disappearing". Potential resonances would also be minimized.

I don't think "downgrading" the overall sound and the fidelity should be needed in the hunt of having the loudspeakers "disappear", which I think both using an extreme toe-in setup would do to a single listener in the sweet spot (which truly is the only position where stereo works), as well as having an extremely high ratio of reflections in the listening room overshadowing the recorded information.

Ime with speakers which work well with time/intensity trading there is no degradation of sound quality when they are set up that way. Ime the primary tradeoff is a reduction in the apparent source width (soundstage width) relative to a more conventional setup geometry due to the significant reduction in strength of the early same-side-wall reflections.

With 45 degrees of toe-in and an equilateral triangle (speaker axes crossing in front of the listener), the central sweet spot is 15 degrees off-axis of each loudspeaker. With the same equilateral triangle and the speakers toed-in by a modest 15 degrees (speaker axes crossing behind the listener), the listener is at the same 15 degrees off-axis. So the change in direct-to-reverberant sound ratio from using a time/intensity trading setup geometry may not be as much as one would expect.

What DOES change significantly is, the time delay between the direct sound and the first strong lateral reflections, which now arrive from the OPPOSITE side wall. Imo this can have spatial quality benefits, which I can describe if you're interested.

* * *

Since there seems to be controversy over the use of the term "disappearing" in this context, here is my usage of the term:

If you close your eyes and can easily hear the loudspeaker locations (using source material which is not hard-panned to one speaker of the other), then imo the speakers do not "disappear". If you close your eyes and the locations of the loudspeakers are not apparent, then imo the speakers do "disappear".

 

[Daverz]

Vandersteen when placed correctly. By design phase coherent/time alignt build. My DSP has to do less is my impressions.

Here's Erin's measurements of the Treo CT:

Vandersteen Treo CT Speaker Review

Vandersteen Treo CT Speaker

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

 

[gino1961]

Looking for speaker recommendations. This is for a 2 or 2.1 channel setup used only for music.

I don't care about anything else other than,
1. Speakers that disappear so I can't pinpoint that the sound is coming from the speakers.
2. Boxy sound that seems common with the boxed speakers I have heard

Currently I own B&W 804 Nautilus and its a hit or miss with respect to above two points depending on the song and volume I play it at.

Budget is $5k used or new

Hi the reason could be trivial A speaker sounds boxy when the box make noise
Then what can make a speaker box make noise ? the woofer of course
your speakers are 24kg/each The towers that disappear are 100kg and more
high stiffness and high weight are what to look for Like in the old 801 series 2