Omni Speaker Options

Duke - that was an excellent explanation.

The only catch is that each person has their own set of priorities when it comes to the order they assign to various sonic characteristics. For one person, that sense of spaciousness may trump a loss of image stability. For another, the same characteristic may be completely unacceptable.

These differences of opinion help explain why there are so many different speaker manufacturers and why the debates among audiophiles are often filled with such rancor.

While one can improve the odds of finding a speaker you'll like by reading the opinions of others, there is never a substitute for hearing the speaker for yourself in your own room.

Once again some wise words from Duke. The path length of 11 feet or the 10 msec rule of thumb is something you need to consider whatever speakers you have. The rule also applies where you sit (do not sit near a wall). This is one of the reasons that you find main speakers built directly in to a wall in most high end studio setups (no spurious reflections).

One concern with Omnis is the necessary mounting and shapes of the speaker box - inevitably there are often edge diffractions of the sound from mounting posts and many of these designs use surfaces to deliberately reflect or disperse the sound (Beolab 5 for example). Therein can lie a weakness in this type design. The result can be that certain frequencies may collapse to the speaker (as secondary reflections color the sound) even if the majority of the sound is natural and wide open. It is worth auditioning to carefully check for these issues - cymbals can often hint at this issue due to their broad frequency content. I found the Beolab to sound very open on airy on some sounds and less so on others - I wonder if there is not a 3 to 6 db SPL drop and edge diffraction occurring as certain frequencies reach the edge of the reflective discs. Overall the speaker sounds great but these coloration will be of concern to some listeners.

All speakers are trade-offs, Omnis are wonderful sounding but there are some compromises (as with any speaker).

Amicar...strongly urge you to listen to your choice before you plunk down money. I couldn't live with MBL's if I were paid for it. Someone on this discussion said they had great fireworks, and I do agree. To my trained, professional violinist ears, they are anything but natural sounding. I suppose a lot has to do with the feeding ancillaries...I heard them with MBL electronics. It would be awful to get these set up in your listening room and hate them.

I've heard the big Beolabs at the Beverly Hills B&O store on at least three occasions. They sound very good till the spl goes up - at which point they become a complete mess featuring compression, significant tonal shift and audible break-up. I'm not talking live rock concert level here, either. It could be unique to the sample/set up at that B&O store, but you would hope that the sales/mgmt people address the issue at some point and I heard the same problem on all 3 visits, which spanned more than a year.

Marty

Don't listen to the naysayers, the mbl's are one of the best speakers out there. One of my experiences with them was at a show, I couldn't believe how they drew me in and had me appreciating all sorts of music including rap which I never like. In a nutshell I was enjoying myself and I think that matters most.
If a particular system helps me appreciate new genres of music that's the one I want. I would like to enjoy jazz, but I can't on most systems, but on the mbls I do, it makes listening a fun event as it should be. Though there I should add other systems did that for me too though not to the same degree.