beagleman
Major Contributor
SDA set out to solve something that never was an issue.I think the problem with SDA was most people who owned it, like myself, never got it set up correctly. I think it's super finicky in terms of aligning the speakers with the listener's ears accurately, and that's hard to do when the speakers are spaced far apart like in a normal stereo system. And even when I've gotten their method to work well in my own experiments with the speakers all right next to each other, it tends to sound too "busy."
They explained SDA in their "White" papers by giving an example of a concert hall with 2 mics set up like where are ears are on our heads...............
Therein lies the issue. They are trying to "Fix" regular stereo speakers, but with the assumption that recordings are made in the manner described above which is what Binaural is basically.
They never explain or account for how SDA will work with the 99% of recordings that are NOT binaural or made with 2 mics spaced 7 inches apart.
Just a great idea, but to fix something that is not broken. Polk was great at marketing and making things sound like they were more than they were.
I have owned SDA speakers, and with NORMALLY recorded stereo they create a false, unusually odd and wide image.
Sure it may sound "Better" than regular stereo in some fun ways, but never sound correct, especially when one knows how the recording was done or was supposed to sound.