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What is you preferred horizontal directivity of a speaker?

What is your preferred horizontal directivity of a speaker?


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Bjorn

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For those of you have an opinion about this. What horizontal directivity/dispersion do you prefer? Only a uniform/constant directivity over a broad frequency area is taking into consideration here.
 

Soniclife

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Can you add a don't know? That's where I am, and I think it's something I need to better understand. I also need to work out over what frequency range I want this dispersion.
 
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Bjorn

Bjorn

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Can you add a don't know? That's where I am, and I think it's something I need to better understand. I also need to work out over what frequency range I want this dispersion.
Added.

I'm aware that most probably don't know what they prefer. Sort of the same thing with acoustics treatment for those who treat their rooms. Most simply don't know the diference between different types of treatment since they haven't experienced it and certainly not been able to AB test.
 

tuga

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Can you add a don't know? That's where I am, and I think it's something I need to better understand. I also need to work out over what frequency range I want this dispersion.

Personal preference requires experimenting and most of us have little experience with narrow directivity speakers.

Apart from the D&D and Linkwitz's LX521, only a few ESLs, 4/5-way horns and maybe some open-baffle designs can maintain constant narrow directivity all the way down to the bass:

Dutch & Dutch 8C (wave-guided cardioid narrow baffle box with rear woofers)
719DD8Cfig3.jpg


Kef Blade 2 (wave-guided coax narrow baffle box with side woofers)
615KEF2fig05.jpg


Jamo R907 (open baffle)
209Jamfig5.jpg


MartinLogan Montis (planar dipole above 300Hz)
912Montisfig4.jpg


Avantgarde Uno Nano (horns above 350Hz)
709AGUfig5.jpg


source: https://www.stereophile.com/
 
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thewas

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For me it depends on the room acoustics and listening distance, my older listening room was more damped and too narrow directivity loudspeakers would sound too dark with linear direct sound, in my current one it's the opposite, too wide directivity loudspeakers sound too bright with linear direct sound. Also EQing them to a different tonality is just a not great compromise as it doesn't sound the same good to me as a loudspeaker with linear direct sound that gets my desired tonality through its directivity.
 

RayDunzl

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I have Martin Logan/Krell for music and movies - narrow dispersion.

And JBL 3 series adjacent to the mains for general noisemaking - wide dispersion.

That makes me the current outlier:

1590938156661.png
 

tuga

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I have Martin Logan/Krell for music and movies - narrow dispersion.

And JBL 3 series adjacent to the mains for general noisemaking - wide dispersion.

That makes me the current outlier:

View attachment 66402

I think that you are definitely in the ≤ 90° camp.
 

MattHooper

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I don't know exactly.

But I can say I prefer a speaker whose sound changes as little as possible, both vertically and horizontally, as I move off axis.

It sounds generally more "natural" to me and when there are obvious shifts in sound with minimal head movement, it tends to bug me.
I also sometimes sit upright, sometimes slouch, sometimes slide down the sofa in to almost lying position, so a speaker that sounds consistent vertically works better for me. (I remember having meadowlark speakers, first order/time coherent, which sounded nice in the sweet spot but there was an interference pattern between the drivers due, I believe, to the crossover design, such that raising my head, or standing up, produced a weird hollow-sounding suck out, and I didn't like noticing that).
 

Sancus

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I think this is an interesting question, and I also think my preference is probably somewhat different depending on the number of channels and room acoustics. But it's hard to say for sure as I'd have to (preferably blind) try out several different configurations and that's very impractical to do.
 

phoenixdogfan

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My personal opinion, and that's all it is (based on pure speculation, I will admit) sees it as possibly desirable to have wider directivity speaker in larger rooms for stereo reproduction, b/c the added ambiance of side wall reflections will make for a wider soundstage.

For multichannel, and especially for movies, I feel the ambiance is expicitly made part of the soundtrack and is played by the surrounds. Any additional ambiance provided by the first reflections especially from sidewall, will, I believe, in this case just muddy, obfuscate the effects already placed in the soundtrack IMHO. Narrower directivity which will minimize room effects are what I believe are desired in this instance.

Likewise, smaller rooms and also of course studio monitoring situations where wider directivity speakers will provide so much reflected sound as to drown out what's on the recording would seem to me inadvisable.
 
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Bjorn

Bjorn

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I don't know exactly.

But I can say I prefer a speaker whose sound changes as little as possible, both vertically and horizontally, as I move off axis.

It sounds generally more "natural" to me and when there are obvious shifts in sound with minimal head movement, it tends to bug me.
I also sometimes sit upright, sometimes slouch, sometimes slide down the sofa in to almost lying position, so a speaker that sounds consistent vertically works better for me. (I remember having meadowlark speakers, first order/time coherent, which sounded nice in the sweet spot but there was an interference pattern between the drivers due, I believe, to the crossover design, such that raising my head, or standing up, produced a weird hollow-sounding suck out, and I didn't like noticing that).
This has to do with the uniformity of the directivity and not the specific beamwidth.

A speaker with a constant directivity is always preferred. Very few speakers are able to maintain a uniform dispersion over a wide frequency area horizontally and vertically. Not really sure that many have actually heard a speaker with true constant directivity in both planes as it's extremely rare.
 
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