• Dagogo

Maybe next time you'll get to review some big speakers...

Seriously, those were among the top two or three speakers I heard at CES last year, and may well have been the very best.

I didn't get to listen for very long, so it was enjoyable reading your impressions. My initial impression was similar to yours - there was something incredibly life-like in the presentation. I appreciate your writing about the particular significance of the first impression, as I hadn't thought of that. Very good observation.

Your review alerted me to an error arising during my own brief audition: I thought I heard high frequencies coming from a higher elevation because of the appearance of the speaker. But more than likely that was just my imagination. You lived with the speaker for a long time and wrote, "There is never a hint of discontinuity between drivers and the sense that the sound comes from a single source is easily believable with eyes shut." I believe you! I think my eyes and feeble brain tricked me.

I thoroughly enjoyed your smoothly flowing, entertaining, highly informative and educational writing style. Thanks for going to the effort to do such a fine job!

Duke

• Bill's review

The soundstage height of the SoundLabs is normally ear height, or a little above ear height. If you're sitting, then it's at seated ear height. If you're standing, then it's at standing ear height. If you sit on the floor, it's at seated on the floor ear height.

I think this is because the first sound from the line source panel to reach your ears is that which travels the shortest path, and so the vertical image height is derived from this shortest-path first-arrival signal.

Now if one SoundLab panel is leaning forwards or backwards a little bit more than the other, it can screw up the imaging more than you'd expect. Best to get them both at the same vertical angle.

The reason the image height is sometimes slightly above ear height is due to a phenomenon first documented back in the early 30's (if I recall correctly) and subsequently confirmed by multiple researchers. That is, the ear has a tendency to mistakenly localize the height of a high frequency sound source slightly above its actual height. So if the program material has a lot of high frequency energy, the soundstage height can seem to be bit higher than normal.

Duke