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Speakers ability to disappear in the room?

kristoffer

kristoffer

Danish Hi Fi NERD
Yesterday I listened to my friends ATC SCM19 and I think the had a really good ability to disappear in the room.

What is the course for this? Is it the room or the way the speaker is build? :)
 
I think it's a combination of the two - both need to be right. IMO for speakers to "disappear" the speaker must have a low level of audible colouration, in other words the sound does not excite easily heard vibrations in the speaker cabinet.

Another IMO, when speakers are positioned in free space & have significant sound radiated to the rear this seems to help with the "disappearing" illusion.

Panels speakers do the disappearing trick well, also BBC monitors.
 
Since changing the valves in my amp (from kt-90's to 88's) the speakers definitely seem to have disappeared into the room more. I put this down to the 88's giving better soundstage, depth & dimension.
So yes, the speaker/room interaction & set up are important, but so are other elements.
Matt.
 
honmanm said:
I think it's a combination of the two - both need to be right. IMO for speakers to "disappear" the speaker must have a low level of audible colouration, in other words the sound does not excite easily heard vibrations in the speaker cabinet.

Another IMO, when speakers are positioned in free space & have significant sound radiated to the rear this seems to help with the "disappearing" illusion.

Panels speakers do the disappearing trick well, also BBC monitors.
Click to expand...

I think you are on the right tracks with the above "free space" theory, as long I suppose as the speakers can make enough bass out in the open away from the rear wall. The colouration idea sounds feasible too as this could lead to "boxey sounding speakers" so perhaps right to. Who Knows !

My Shahinian Obelisks coupled with Avondale Grad 1/TPX2 and Avondale Voyagers do this "disappearing" pretty well. The speakers are about 4.5ft from the rear wall and 2.8ft from the side wall (7.5ft apart) with me approx 8ft away in the listening triangle. When the speakers were pushed nearer to the rear wall the illusion of invisible speakers is less so. I am running a bare CDX with this at the moment and do sometimes wonder if an xps would make the system even more invisible. Anybody fancy lending me one in the Bromley Kent area?:D

I have heard that some people don't like the "losing the speaker" sound .
To me this is one of the best parts of good stereo setup.

Horses for courses and all that.
 
No need for gimmick/speakers and modded amps.

Some things that helps make your speakers 'disappear'

1) Keep speakers away from side walls
2) Good recordings that utilise stereo panning and processing effectively
3) Dope
 
Its a good spkr design thing. nowt to do with room this n that. royd minstrels do this trick with aplomb, as do heybrook hb1 (real ones): nothing particularly expensive here I can plonk either almost anywhere/ far from perfect, in a cluttered room right next to furniture & stuff for eg & they do this trick same each time- no arsing with perfect positioning. Any speaker that Id have to get 'perfect' re optimum space behind, or cant be nr walls, or must be on their X stands, must be toed in X degrees: utter boredom/ no thanks & imo that's just a crap speaker, whatever they cost. That's why I have Royds.

Its something to do with the synergy between the two speakers, that Ive come to know (more than that Im not tecchy enough to say) but simply put: its good speaker design. Many Ive heard, even very costly ones don't do this disappearing trick. actually the vast majority don't do it particularly modern ones aimed for maximum detail retrieval at the expense of characteristics you mention= souless speakers the norm.
 
You dont even need Royd Minstrels. A £20 pair of 2nd hand JPW's on the carpet floor can disappear aswell.

Put ANY speaker near a side wall, and you WILL hear the reflections from the wall and the speaker at nearly the same time, the brain will have a real tough time processing that and it will sound sh1t let alone have the speaker disappear.
 
So from these replies it would seem that you don't need expensive equipment to achieve this, just good acoustics and well designed equipment. Actually ,not even good acoustics.
 
Not quite. You do also need recordings that have good stereo and spacial processing in them too.

An early stereo recording is very left and right so virtually impossible for any speaker to disappear behind.
 
1. Well matched speakers.
2. Good positioning to avoid early reflections
3. Decent recording.
 
Anh said:
An early stereo recording is very left and right so virtually impossible for any speaker to disappear behind.
Click to expand...

Early pop did this. The beatles UK 60s stereo stuff being notoriously annoying and nicer in mono. But anything with with musicians that played with Jazz or orchestra generally was good in the days of the ampex 3 track etc ie around the 50's. Try 'genius hits the road' by Ray Charles for a blast of somewhere else in space/time.
 
Personally I would put it all down to speaker positioning in most rooms and it will not be possible to make speakers disappear in some rooms.
 
I agree with the point about cabinet colouration. Low colouration designs seem to do this much better (IMO). Small speakers typically have less box to have a problem with, so that's a good thing. B&W speakers seem to have very well damped boxes (shame that I think they otherwise sound crap). My existing Impulse horns also do a great job (not common for most horns).
 
i've only got it right recently, speaker position does have an effect and the speakers are very neutral PMCs.
Final correction was when we got the christmas tree out of the way so could bring them in about five feet from the walls; in best position the centre lines meet a couple of feet behind my head. Tweeters are in and cabinets are almost as close to front wall as possible.
These are 4m transmission line speakers so less radiation from the rear in the treble.
As said previously some recordings will never sound perfect.
YMMV
 
Perhaps one also should avoid electronic apparatus which put everything in the foot-tapping department, and otherwise is not famous for "transparency" and 3-D capability, etc....
 
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