My speakers don't "dissapear"

If two speakers are out of relative phase, the sound seems to be coming from everywhere (or nowhere in particular), but, usually not straight out of the speaker. But, an incorrectly wired speaker could be an issue. If the drivers are incorrectly wired in one speaker, this could damage imaging while not obviously being out of phase (I've seen speakers with such internal wiring issues).

Still, my bet is that it is a speaker placement issue. IT sometimes takes a whole lot of experimentation to find a good spot. I've seen a few rooms where a really good spot just did not seem to be available, but even there, persistence at least yielded the best of a bad situation.

That combo should disappear nicely. I've heard it happen impressively with my own ears with the 400xi and Focal Profile series and decent Audioquest cables.

Are the speakers too close to the rear or side walls perhaps? Also, what kind of ICs and speaker cables used? Clean power is another consideration. Do you use/need power conditioning? What is the room like? Is it extremely dead acoustically perhaps?

I had the same problem with my Mini Utopias. I tried everything, but still couldn't get it right. The Focals can be a bit on the shrill side, so that might have had something to do with it. I bought a pair of SP Tech Timepiece 3.0's and I wouldn't even know they were there if I couldn't see them. All I hear now is music pure music. I'd look into the Timepiece Mini's if I were you.

Are your speakers pointed at you (toed in)? If so please try aiming them straight ahead and then very slightly begin to toe them in. Also while aimed straight ahead, try small incremental changes in separation distance. There is a sweet spot. I run my Thiel CS6s straight ahead and my Thiel 2.4s with just a slight toe in.

Don't give up!!!

Okay, this is just a guess...

It looks to me like there's a double diffractive edge below the tweeter, formed by the horizontal slot on the front baffle. The ear might be picking up this diffraction as a secondary sound source with a seriously skewed spectrum, as it will occur within the critical .68 millisecond time window between the arrival of the first sound and the kicking-in of the precedence effect.

You might try stuffing something absorptive into that slot, like a thin slice of foam, or otherwise smoothing it over (maybe just a piece of masking tape would help - or better yet duct tape, for that macho look). While you're at it, tape a piece of foam or felt or something along the top edge above the tweeter as well. The sides of the cabinet look like they're nicely radiused, so I don't think they're an issue.

If this helps, you might consider going all the way and contacting Jim Goulding at diffracionbegone.com, as his felt tweeter surrounds work quite well (they received a Golden Ear Award from TAS a couple of months ago).

If this doesn't help, I have another idea but its implications are more expensive.

Duke
dealer/manufacturer