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Controlled dispersion
When listening to a speaker system in a typical listening room, you are actually listening to a blend of the direct sound from the speaker, and the reflected sound from your own listening room. Depending on the design of the speaker and the design and size of the listening room, the reflected sound or so-called off-axis response can contribute up to 50% of the sound you listen to. Consequently, the off-axis response of the speaker has great influence on the overall sound quality.
Now, off-axis response is needed in order for you to be able to move around your listening room and still experience good sound quality almost everywhere. But, in order not to distort the direct sound from the speakers, the off-axis response has to be fairly flat and also low in level compared to the direct sound.
What that means in terms of designing the speaker system is that the phase response must be continuous and that no drive units should be pointed directly at room surfaces close to the speakers. Because of that, you will not find a main speaker from Vifa with a rear-mounted tweeter or a main speaker designed as a dipole or bi-pole. This is because those designs make the off-axis sound too powerful compared to the direct sound from the speaker. As a result, the added reflected sound will mask all original low level room information in the program material, thus removing the information needed by your senses to create the illusion of listening in the original room in which the recording was made. In that case, you would end up listening to two rooms at the same time - the room in which the recording was made, and your own room. That would place a “carpet” between you and the music, reduce the size of the sound stage and limit the musicality of the system.
Therefore, to be true to the original signal, all Vifa speaker systems have been designed with continuous phase, controlled off-axis response, and with all drive units pointed at the listener.
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