Long ago, in a time far, far away, when there was no pandemic, visitors regularly flocked to Boulder Colorado to hear PS Audio’s reference system. Though the sound made us all happy there was a problem.
To a person, the giant Infinity IRSV were a visual impediment. To fully get the illusion of the speakers disappearing one was best served listening with eyes closed, lights low, or both.
We deal a lot with the visual impediments inflicted by loudspeaker enclosures upon our living spaces. They are neither furniture nor decorations. Rather, speaker enclosures are more tolerated than visually appreciated.
If they didn’t make beautiful music I seriously doubt we’d voluntarily place them in our living room.
This brings to mind the notion of bookshelf speakers on stands: small enclosures struggling to mimic their full-range brethren.
Why do we tolerate the shortcomings of small boxes on thin stands as opposed to full-range boxes of identical dimensions? Both have the same footprint, so it can’t be a matter of living room real estate.
I suspect we all know the answer.
It’s the title of this post.
