From day one the designs had to work with this challange. One solution was to make a line source where the wave did not grow in the vertical direction, so the listener only heard the sound from the driver at his ear level, as long as he was listening in the near field. A line source is aproximated when the array drivers are less than one half wavelength appart. The other way is to make a focused array where all the drivers are at the same distance from the ear. But the focus point only allows one aligned listening position.
Hearing is still beleaving. -Linc