We all love that moment when the speakers disappear. A stage opens up between—and beyond—the boxes, and musicians snap into place like holograms. Pinpoint imaging and an expansive stage.
But here’s the part many don’t realize: to get both of those at once, your speaker needs to be flat not just on-axis, but off-axis too.
When you angle speakers straight ahead, with little or no toe-in, each speaker sends more energy to both ears. This broader spread of consistent frequency content across the listening area allows the brain to use subtle amplitude and timing differences—along with phase coherence between the two speakers—to create a wider, more believable soundstage.
For that to work convincingly, the sound coming off the sides of the speaker (the off-axis response) needs to be tonally similar to what comes straight ahead. If the off-axis sound rolls off or shifts in tonality, the lateral image blurs. Spatial cues get skewed, and instruments lose their "position" on the stage.
So it's not that the left speaker literally "feeds" your right ear with distinct cues—it’s that your brain blends what both ears hear from both speakers, and if the content arriving at each ear is spectrally consistent (even off-axis), you get a stable, accurate soundstage.
Most speakers can’t do this. Their off-axis energy rolls off too fast or peaks in odd places. So they require toe-in to “beam” the sweet spot at your head. That gives you a narrow, centered image, but sacrifices width and spaciousness.
But if your speaker has flat response on- and off-axis—like our Aspen series—you can face them straight ahead. You get a massive lateral stage and rock-solid center image. That’s because every part of the stereo field is built from consistent frequency and phase information, no matter where it’s aimed.
Technically, this comes down to dispersion control. Planar magnetic drivers help here: they radiate evenly across a wide arc, without hot spots or lobes. But it also takes crossover design, driver matching, baffle geometry, and cabinet integration. You can’t bolt a tweeter and woofer on a box and expect them to work like this.
This kind of design gives you freedom—freedom to place your speakers for the biggest stage without sacrificing clarity or precision.
How flat are your speakers?
