I actually had never heard a Polk speaker I liked either. And further, if not for SDA, these would be merely ok speakers. Certainly not bad speakers. They are very neutral. I just wouldn’t be that excited about them compared to the 100’s or other interesting speakers.
I strongly suggest reading some of the background research before dismissing the concept. XTC is a part of a lot of cutting edge sound reproduction research and for a reason.
the tech doesn’t make the imaging more pinpoint. It causes the boundaries of the stage to expand far beyond the speakers. By eliminating crosstalk it eliminates the source cues that tell us we are listening to two speakers. Again, the stereo image is just a facsimile of the actual performance. How speakers reproduce sound has very little to do with the way we would hear the original performance.
just because I like the way these speakers present a soundstage does not mean I think your speakers or all others are wrong. The positivity of the review is not a personal attack on your speakers or preferences. I’ve never heard your system. Id love too. The review simply reflects my opinion that this idiosyncratic speaker presents the best and largest image I have ever heard.
it feels a bit like you are assuming that if this is right what you love must be wrong. Therefor this must be wrong. But I don’t see it that way. There are a lot of ways to get realistic sound. But nothing is Uncompromised. Everything we listen to is flawed. Every system we listen to is flawed.
there are real flaws with the binaural approach. While it tends to give the most accurate soundstage/image of any approach. The encode process typically imparts coloration. The decode side is usually headphones which have an “in your head“ sound and tend to cause positional reversals of the image. Things in front sound behind. Switching to a binaural decoding speaker fixes that but has the problem of still having some compromises in timbre. It imparts Its own issues.
ambisonics is currently the best thing I have ever heard. But at this time it is not a consumer friendly technology. This speaker reminded me a lot of what the Ambisonics system did so well, though certainly not as good. It is my sincere hope that we get there some day.
even though I now own these Polks, I kept my Gedlee Abbeys and intend to setup both. I still like the Gedlees for some things better. The Polks for other things.
mad for setup, they are finicky. They don’t work that great in small rooms with strong reflections. Or at least that was my experience. Such spaces need careful setup and some absorption. Having said that, their optimal placement is consistent with how many people place their speakers anyway. So if someone has a living room that is at least 15’ wide, this might actually be an easier speaker to place. I get about 3-5 clients a month through Poes Acosutics. I bet about half or more have their speakers in rooms at least 15’ wide, pushed against the front wall, and only 6-8 feet apart. They are usually sitting on a couch, pushed against a wall 10-12 feet away. I actually think these Polks would work better for those folks than the speakers they use. More traditional designs really should be pulled out from the wall and spread much farther apart to sound their best. I would normally argue that such people probably don’t spend 5k on speakers, but I have been surprised what some have. There are folks spending that and more and still placing them badly.
It seems to me that this is in many aspects analogous to the dummy head recordings for headphone listening. This is very effective, except their is limited content available and I dislike headphone listening. I hardly ever listen to phones, unless I'm editing analog tape, or on a plane.
As I have alluded to in another post, when it comes to creating a realistic sound filed, speakers are only half of the loaf. The other half is the microphones and how they are placed.
That is why I spent so many volunteer hours recording for the public radio station over many years. Apart from learning a lot, it was pivotal in my development as a designer of speakers. I mainly used two techniques, Blumlein and the matrix C-S equivalent. I also used spaced omnis, the width of a head, with a perspex baffle separating them, to substantially reduce cross talk. This latter technique was particularly effective for chamber groups, like trios and quartets.
Now it is true at their best, given optimal source and set up a pair of stereo speakers will only give you a window on the venue. The image in the main is between the speakers. One of the biggest errors in setup is having the speakers too close together. I see this again and again in pictures placed here. Optimal placement is 12 to 14 feet, 14 being about optimal in my view. However I realize problem speakers may not be able to sustain a sound stage that wide, and create the "hole in the middle" problem. However good speakers will, and also have good imaging depth. Given a good recording excellent speakers will accurately image between the speakers and provide good image depth.
In my view a big game changer has been upixers and especially the latest Dolby upmixer. Good recordings using minimal miking techniques are able to recreate the original acoustic to incredibly faithful degree. Again I refer you the the recordings done by Tom Scott of his brother Jonathan and also when he joins in at the piano.
There are lots of these on YouTube. I think they have given over 30 concerts during the pandemic. They have been releasing about two a month. They also have a lot of material pre pandemic. The musical content is of the highest order and the realism incredible. You should sample them. So although not from a stereo pair of speakers, these upmixers can allow a multichannel system properly set up do a very passable job of imposing the acoustic of the recording venue on your listening room. This includes a wide soundstage.
I can understand how this SDA technique could create a soundstage wide of the speakers. Given proper spacing and positioning of a single listener. This in itself would rule them out for me. However I would wonder how really accurate the soundstage is. In addition, this technique seems to me to be riddled with opportunities for creating frequency response errors. I can see how this effect could attract initial attention, but I have to wonder how accurate it really is. After all a wide soundstage is only one small slice of the pie, and of itself alone not highly significant in the totality of what is required for long term highly pleasurable reproduction in the home.
The fact you are also intending to use another set of speakers as well, just adds another notch to my skepticism.
