What is the point of point source?

I think one way to look at what people conceptually like about point source speakers is that microphones used to record music act in general like point receivers. There are various pickup patterns and multi-miking is common but you don't record a sound event with treble, mid, and bass microphones arranged top to bottom.

So the general idea with a 'point source' speaker being that it acts like a microphone in reverse. Whether this sounds good to you in your room is up to you.

WHat Nik said + speakers that approximate a point source (coaxial or OHM CLS drivers, or even smaller two way designs with more closely mounted drivers for example) tend to have advantages in general in regards to phase coherence at typical listening distances. For small or even modest sized rooms in most peoples homes, this can be very advantageous in regards to the music being delivered smoothly. Having the sound emitted from approximately the same location at the same time also often results paradoxically in a bigger soundstage along with more accurate imaging in that your ears are able to triangulate location of specific recorded sounds within the stereo soundfield more accurately. Its like an image being more in rather than out of focus enables your eyes to exactly determine the location of details better.

If you listen from farther away, speakers tend to approximate a point source more so you get a lot of the same advantages. Line arrays can also work very well in larger venues listening from a distance.

A point source speaker implies a perfectly uniform spherical dispersion. No instruments have such output. No microphones can record it, either.

Stan, above, started with the idea of the size of a radiator being related to its directivity but didn't finish the thought. I wonder if a radiator beams more as the wavelength approaches the size of the driver.....

I also wonder how various linear designs work into this. A ribbon tweeter is a point, but stretched up/down for a distance.

I like the way Mapman was headed with this.....as a practical solution for speakers....a point source, which may never exist as a practical driver.

Maybe someone will come up with a solution using that new carbon material....Graphene?

In a concert hall you generally do not sit very close to the group, and the sound wave is closer to a plane than a point source!

don,

i think live is different because instruments have actual location. with stereo sound reproduction, that is not the case. spatial cues captured in the recording process enable your ears to triangulate location. speakers that emulate a point sorurce better are advantaged to deliver these accurately. this is one of the reasons i am a big fan of the ohm acoustics cls walsh driver. with simple two mike recordings that emulate the listening topology of your ears, they are capable of eerie lifelike imaging.