Posted by Duke on April 14, 2003 at 15:58:08

In Reply to: Re: Wayne's presentation and speakers @ MWAF posted by mikebake on April 14, 2003 at 15:20:48:

Mike,

Thanks for validation of the 7 Pi's sound from around the bend!

With a really good system, you can sit in the sweet spot and close your eyes and it can fool you into thinking real, live performers are there. But from around a corner, or even the next room, it's pretty obvious whether it's live or Memorex. This is because "around the bend", all you can possibly hear is the reverberant field, and very few speakers generate a tonally correct reverberant field because their directional characteristics change with frequency. A good corner horn is among the rare exceptions - it radiates into a 90-degree angle up and down the spectrum. Of course, live music also sounds correct from the next room. The speakers I peddle, Sound Lab's big faceted-curved electrostats, are among the other approaches that create a tonally correct reverberant field.

I only listened to the 7 Pi's for a few minutes, but I would predict that they'd be extremely relaxing to listen to long-term. The tonal balance was good, and having the reverberant field sound like the direct sound contributes to long-term listening enjoyment. When there is a significant discrepancy between the first-arrival sound and the reverberant sound, the ear/brain system has to work harder to integrate these two tonally disparate events, and the eventual result can be listening fatigue.

Enjoyed your taking the time to explain microphone/singer proximity effects to me at the show!

Best wishes,

Duke