The science behind the nearfield experience

[kemmler3D]

there's a 25% discount on the ls50 meta right now and I have to resist haha

KEF does sales fairly regularly and there are always pairs for sale secondhand, so don't sweat it too much, you can find a deal on them if and when you decide they're the final answer.

I bet they sound wonderful, but man I do not appreciate their look.

Yeah, kind of a love it or hate it thing.

 

[kemmler3D]

what if a mid or farfield speaker (Polk T50 floorstanders) is used for nearfield (around 1.5-1.6m listening distance)? Would it be negative for SQ?

If the drivers are large or far apart, you need to be further apart for the sound from the drivers to "integrate" before it reaches you. If you imagine that each driver is a spotlight, you want to be far enough away that you're illuminated by each driver equally, you don't want patches of light on you. I've seen it said that you need to be 3x further than the largest dimension of the speaker for this to happen. 1.5m might be too close to the T50s for them to sound right.

 

[Johnny_Macaroni]

KEF does sales fairly regularly and there are always pairs for sale secondhand, so don't sweat it too much, you can find a deal on them if and when you decide they're the final answer.

Good news then!

I'll keep that in mind, thanks again for your replies

 

[FletchAZ]

Hello forum!

This is my first time posting here but I've been reading reviews here for a couple of months now.

I started my audiophile journey a year ago with kanto oras and a sub8 hooked to my PC. I then switched to a passive setup with a pair of kef q150 and a douk audio a5 amp. Now I'd like to move the kefs to my living room to enjoy my movies and music there as well.

I want new speakers for my desktop and I've been looking reviews for the last couple of days. I almost pulled the trigger on a pair of ls50 meta, but my girlfriend told me to wait a little and make more research before buying even more expensive item than last time.

There are very few audio stores near my hometown, so trying new speakers is difficult. Plus I'm unsure about sellers honesty/knowledge.

I've been looking online, but decided to ask the pros too. Here I have a couple questions:

- Which attributes do I have to look for to determine that a speaker is great for 1m distance listening?

- Does active, passive or studio monitors make a difference for a nearfield experience?

- I do not understand everything about the reviews, mainly the graphs and waves. Is there a tutorial somewhere that could explain to me how to read them?

- Any snakeoil that I should avoid and tips/rules to follow?

Thanks for reading and have a great day

I encourage you to order the KEF LS50s from Amazon and try them for up to 30 days. Amazon is truly risk free on the returns. I know because I returned a pair of LS 50s solely because I did not care for the speaker stands. I chose to order KEF LS60s last February as I had sufficient room for compact floor standers, and have been quite pleased. Trust your ears in your specific listening environment for a couple of weeks with music you know, and worry less about the specs and tests of highly reputable, well regarded brands. Also, don't buy a sub until you have listened to the speakers for at least a couple of weeks in YOUR OWN ROOM. Best of luck.

 

[Arindal]

Which attributes do I have to look for to determine that a speaker is great for 1m distance listening?

- Broad listening window, ideally with the frequency response not changing over a vast difference in angles.
- absence of interference/lobing
- low directivity index over a broad range of frequency bands, no increasing directivity, particularly above 2.5K ideally constant or widening directivity
- pointsource or localizable drivers (midrange, tweeter) very close to each other, ideally coaxial
- localizable sources not overly broad, particularly midwoofers of a 2-way speakers

There is a subjective component to the projection plane, perceived proximity, depth-of-field which you cannot really determine just based on measurements or specs. You need to do a listening test.

Personally I have pretty negative experience with all sorts of speakers which are either waveguide-loaded or coaxial with the midrange cone forming the waveguide of the tweeter for true nearfield. That is particularly the case with those narrowing down the directivity above 2.5k, like most of KEF, Tannoy, Neumann and alike.