Quote Originally Posted by E-Stat
Actually, you just fail to acknowledge them. Which is fine by me. Now that everyone (including GUAB) agrees that dome drivers have wider dispersion that flat planars, that observation is no longer questioned. I also pointed out there are quite a few manufacturers who do not agree with your notion of the universal use of the term "rear" when it comes to surround sound. As per your recommendation, it's quite easy to take a look at the back of receivers and processors to determine that. In the space of five minutes I found THX, NAD, Onkyo, Sony, Pioneer, McIntosh, and Krell. There are likely others. Accept that or not - your choice.
I also posted links that supported the use of the word rear to describe speakers for the rear/sides of the room. As I stated earlier, the words are interchangble, and have been for years. This is not a point of debate, but a point just to muddy the original point.

What triggered my original comment was a series of observations regarding directivity by Tom Danley of Danley Sound Labs, a speaker manufacturer of commercial horns. Here are some examples:

Extended nearfield

Constant Directivity

Advantage of large panel speakers

Reduced Phase shift

Preserve waveshape

What can kill imaging

Larger direct field

Convey more information

While I likely didn't convey the role of directivity nearly as well as Tom, that has been my point all along. Naturally, there is no consensus among speaker designers as to what works best in all aspects, but I do relate facts.

One decided sensitivity I have is with coherency and the typical use of multi driver solutions. While there are certainly exceptions (and one of Tom's designs might be one of them), I am aware of the different radiation patterns of the different drivers. I was listening to a friend's JBL speaker and was immediately taken with the weird image. Since it ran a 5" midrange beyond the ideal range, its dispersion in the upper midrange / lower high region was significantly narrower than either the woofer below or the dome tweeter above. The image was like that of a carnival mirror, pinched in the middle and wide at the top and bottom. While I'm not suggesting this is the case with every speaker, that is the first thing I noticed - which the owner had never noticed.

You might want to look at Tom's work (via the link) as it is used commercially in places like Turner Stadium in Atlanta. His horn designs are unique in that all the drivers radiate from the same mouth - and thus have the same radiation pattern and directivity one finds with full range speakers. Because the directivity is constant, it readily supports use in any kind of array given its symmetric design. Which, by the way is also true of the Sound Lab electrostat. In my gallery is a large array demonstrated at RMAF by Ray Kimber. Dr. West put together an even larger proof of concept array at a large auditorium in Utah using a 2 x 6 grid of the same 922s used by Kimber. Two tall by six wide. It created a full range constant directivity source measuring about eighteen feet square.

Peace.

rw
More mud, good gracious.......