Most of you know I have Bose 201's and also Paradigm Cinema series speakers. I though I'd do an experiment to see if I liked the sound better or if it were more separated using the Paradigms in the living room.
For those of you the 201's are advertised as stereo everywhere, basically meaning that it's hard to tell left from right. When I listen to good speakers I think that I can get better separation by switching them out. Well, I tried it with the highly directional Paradigms. The woofer and tweeter don't actually face in the same direction. I think that the tweeter is about aimed about 15 degrees further in than the woofers.
To my disappointment it didn't improve. It actually got worse. Maybe I'm used to the echo'y concert sound and have become rather fond of it. The Paradigms were definitely more left/right but didn't separate as much as I though. Since they are small (4" driver and tweeter) they didn't have much kick and I would have needed to spend more time fine tuning the sub.
My conclusion from all of this is that my funky shaped living room doesn't benefit from more directional speakers. The sound was good, but the Bose work just fine in that configuration. The other issue is that my source selector knob has a bias to the left side and I need to have it serviced to get it straightened out.
Happy listening.
