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The side effects of the Wide beam
width are dependent on the strength of
the sidewall reflections, however, in
many situations, four different effects
may be audible.
The first is that the apparent distance
to the various sources in the stereo
mix will collapse slightly, resulting in
the perception that the sources in the
recording are roughly the same
distance from the listening position as
the loudspeakers themselves. This
means that (relative to the narrow
mode) very close sources will move
further away and very far sources will
move closer to the listening position.
Secondly, the apparent width of the
sources will become slightly larger with
less precise left-right locations. You will
not have pinpoint locations as in
narrow mode – imaging becomes
slightly more “cloudy” or “fuzzy”. This
is due to the extra energy reflected off
the side walls.
tri
tri
tom
tom
tom
hh
voice
bongos
bk
bk
bass
bass
gtr
synth pad at end
sax
snare
"choir"
"choir"
cow
synth fx around 2:20
shake
tri
tri
Figure 5.13: A map of the phantom im-
age location of the voice (shown in red)
in Suzanne Vega’s recording of Tom’s
Diner. Beam Width: Wide. Compare to
Figure
tri
tri
tom
tom
tom
hh
voice
bongos
bk
bk
bass
bass
gtr
synth pad at end
sax
snare
"choir"
"choir"
cow
synth fx around 2:20
shake
tri
tri
Figure 5.14: A map of the phantom im-
age locations of instruments and voices
in Jennifer Warnes’s recording of Bird on
a Wire. Beam Width: Wide. Compare to
Figure
Thirdly, the overall timbre or tone
colour of the sound may change as a
result of increase influence of the
sidewall reflections at the listening
position.
Finally, as mentioned above, the
overall “punch” of the bass will change
when compared to the narrow mode.
5.1.3
Omni
In some situations, it may be
preferable that the BeoLab 90’s radiate
sound in all directions equally. One
example of this are when you are
throwing a party and have many
guests listening to music
simultaneously from many different
locations in the room. Another example
is when you have fewer persons in the
room, but they are moving around to
different locations and simply want
background music while they do so.
In such situations, you can set the
BeoLab 90’s to deliver an “Omni” beam
width where sound is radiated equally
in all directions in the horizontal plane.
Front
Front
Right
Back
Right
Front
Left
Back
Left
Figure 5.15: Conceptual drawing show-
ing the beam width of the Omnidirec-
tional (Omni) Beam.
Figure 5.16: Press the outside circle in
the Beam Control menu to change the
Beam Width to Omni.
−
15
−
10
−
5
0
5
30
210
60
240
90
270
120
300
150
330
180
0
Beam Width: Omni
64
125
250
500
1000
2000
4000
8000
Figure 5.17: Polar plot of the directivity
of the Omni Beam. Latency: Long
17