Klangwerk and Illusonic At Swiss High-End 2017

Klangwerk will exhibit with Illusonic and their 3-channel setup at this year’s Swiss High-End in Zurich this coming weekend.  

A fundamental problem with stereo playback is the “sweet spot”: Phantom sound sources are only perceived between two speakers when the listener is at the same distance from the left and the right speaker. If he moves out of he middle, the level and delay references (which are the basis for the perception of phantom sound sources) are no longer accurate. The spatial representation collapses.

Klangwerk speakers radiate laterally so that the L/R differences in level are gradually compensated when moving out of the middle, which significantly increases the “sweet spot”. However a quantum leap is provoked with the use of an acoustically matching center speaker, whose signal is calculated by the Illusonic processor. Individually selectable parameters allow a sensitive adjustment to the room and the music system, as well as a wider position of the main speakers. Interestingly enough, the spatial representation also appears more accurate in the “sweet spot”, because central sound sources from a center loudspeaker are perceived more intensely than central phantom sound sources. The Klangwerk loudspeakers are predestined for such an arrangement thanks to their elegant and discreet appearance and the acoustically identical structure for all channels.

The Illusonic processors use additional surround channels (home theater) for a more accurate spatial rendering (depending on the device up to 16 channels) and also understand multi-channel sound formats. All loudspeakers are also calibrated by specialists at Illusonic exactly to the room acoustics, based on accurate measurement results and a powerful analysis software. Their experience and customer requests also allow for special setups which are perceived as subjectively more consistent. This manual method is still clearly superior to the widespread automated calibration systems and can also detect errors in the setup.

Breakout Room 3