A question TLSGuy:
When you say that the speakers should be placed at a good distance apart, do you mean for stereo music reproduction, or movies, or both?
You raise a good question, that I have already alluded to.
If you place speakers close together, like I see in pictures posted with speakers close to the sides of LCD and plasma screens, you will have a small sound stage. I don't happen to like a small sound stage.
The other problem is speaker to speaker interference, so yes, I mean Stereo reproduction and movies. Having R & L mains close together with a center channel is a nightmare, as you then have three speakers in close proximity. In my room which is narrower than I had before, I had to design for the mains 9ft apart, which puts the center channel only 4.5 ft from each main. Now my experiments in the development of this system told me this was a problem. So I had to design a center with a relatively narrow dispersion pattern, but big enough for the dialog to cover the seating area, to minimize the problem. But it remains a problem to a degree. If I had my choice which I don't, I would like a big enough room to have the mains 14 ft apart and then the center would be 7.5 ft from each main.
Now I know quite a few speakers have trouble creating a convincing sound stage that wide, but good ones will.
Now the question of how wide you want the sound stage in home theater is open to debate. I have to admit that there is a huge disconnect between the visual and sonic sound stages in my system. This disconnect is most acute while viewing fine opera productions on DVD. However as I stated previously, most of the time my screen is off. I don't want to listen to a big orchestral and especially a big choral work or a recording of a large organ with a narrow sound stage. Nor for that matter do I want a small sound stage for a huge tableau in a Verdi opera, even if there is a disconnect to the screen.
The same goes for movies also, were on well mastered productions the sounds can go way off in the distance in left or right field. If you play a solo guitar, even with these speaker distances the sound stage will collapse to appropriate proportions, but a narrow sound stage will not open up. Now it may be that some people really do not like watching a relatively small screen, mine is 52 inches, with a huge sound stage.
I suppose one could move the speakers about between music and movies, but if you click on the link in my signature, you will see my speakers are far too heavy to move. Anyhow, I personally like a big sound stage for the movies also, and I'm prepared to tolerate the visual disconnect. As I stated previously, I believe the illusion of HT is 90% an audio illusion and 10% video at the most, at least it is in this rig.
I'll grant you my sound stage is likely larger and deeper than the norm. However one of my main goals was to go beyond the famous Rogers/Quad BBC monitors which could make a distant organ solo reed stop float in distant space. And that they certainly do. So I suspect my disconnect between the visual and audio sound stage is also greater than average. But I would never consider reducing the audio sound stage to match the visual, but I can see why others might.
I hope this longer than usual reply has answered you question. It is a complex issue, and to an extent goes to the heart of what HT can and should be. If we could just have a big holographic screen, would that not solve the problem?
