For those with close spacing of speakers

[JonFo]

One of the products I saw at CES and the associated tech might be a great benefit to those of you with closely spaced front speakers (due to room and positioning constraints).

The underlying theory is called Ambiophonics, and according to those who have heard it well set up, it’s great. There was a well reviewed demo at HE2007.

Here’s what Stereophile editor Robert Deutsch had to say:
http://blog.stereophile.com/he2007/051107tact/

The demo setup at HE2007 was rather unusual, with a pair of giant Sound-Lab electrostatics at one end of the room, and another pair of floor-standing TacT speakers at the other end, the setup intended to demonstrate how the system works with these two types of speakers. I only heard the demo with the Sound-Labs, but I must say I was quite blown away with the huge soundstage, precision of imaging, and sheer ease of the sound

Now, there is a caveat, it does result in single point sweet spot, but allegedly, it’s phenomenal.

The upcoming TacT box (~$2K) will integrate this into any system. Should be interesting to try.

What is Ambiophonics?

The Ambiophonics method combines an exploitation of seldom applied, but well documented, psychoacoustic principles with the basic rules of good musical performance space design to create believable concert-hall sound fields in dedicated home listening rooms. Ambiophonics moves the listener into the same space as the performers, by accommodating to individual external ear and head characteristics, minimizing interaural correlation at the listening positions, abandoning the traditional stereo loudspeaker equilateral triangle, recreating early reflections and reverberant fields via computer, eliminating front-loudspeaker crosstalk, and reducing the home music theater wideband reverberation time to less than .2 seconds. The completion and testing of the first full-scale version of the Ambiophonics Home Concert Hall has demonstrated that the Ambiophonic sound reproducing technique is a worthy successor to both stereophonic or surround-sound listening configurations, for staged music, in that it can consistently generate a "You Are There" concert, opera or pop sound field even preferably from standard LPs, DVDs or CDs that the ear-brain system will accept as real.

 

[JonFo]

Picture of the Huge SoundLabs (Electrostats) being demoed.

note that the people listening had to all be lined up in the 'sweet spot'

 

[wink]

Very cool..

Pic won't open for me

 

[FOUNTAIN]

Very cool..

Pic won't open for me

It won't open for me either, but that sounds very interesting Jonathan. Thanks for sharing.

 

[JonFo]

It won't open for me either, but that sounds very interesting Jonathan. Thanks for sharing.

Ah, sorry about that. I've now uploaded as an attachment on this forum.

Cross-forum linking only works if you are logged in to both forums as a user, Doh! :duh:

 

[JonFo]

BTW- a full implementation that's described in detail in this AES article (lots of great diagrams in there) on PanAmbio 4.1, is what will be in the new TacT their new PanAmbio 4.0 preamp / effect box (can be added between an existing preamp and your power amps).

The new TacT box can be even setup to do active crossover (either between panels and woofers) or between speakers and sub.

As most TacT boxes, it can also do room correction.

For $2K, an intriguing mix of features for ESL users, that's for sure.

Still no info on their site yet, so keep checking.