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A couple facts and some common sense.

69.59.171.164

"It works because the treble dispersion of the Magnepan ribbon is almost 180 degrees. I get as much treble by listening with the tweeter-side edges of the speakers facing forward as I do with the speakers facing forward in a normal setup."

The magnepan tweeter is a dipole radiator. As such, it radiates sound forwards and backwards equally. However, at 90 degrees off-axis the radiation pattern forms a deep null.

Your claim that you get as much treble energy with the tweeter-side edges of the speaker facing forward is precisely the opposite of what you would expect to hear. The direct energy radiated by the tweeter would be greater than 20db attenuated in the topmost octave. OTOH, the reflected energy from your room boundaries would be significantly higher than in a conventional (i.e. proper) setup.

The other problem with your recommended orientation is that the offset between the tweeter, mid and bass panels relative to your listening chair would be as far from ideal as possible. The crossover was designed with a time constant delay such that the arrival of signals from each panel reach your ears at roughly the same time. Rotating the panels 90 degrees off the design axis guarantees that you have effectively "undone" what the magnepan engineer designed the crossover to do. That said, the effect of the first problem will swamp the negative effects of this second problem.

It never ceases to amaze me how audiophiles and "experts" often muck up what physics (and common sense) dictate.

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  Kimber Kable  

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