I just wanted to provide a quick update on my journey learning about speakers for near wall application. Because on-wall speakers were new to me I decided to try some commercial speakers before designing and building my own. I've tried several and finally kept a set of used Dali Ikon on-walls. They won me over with the very accurate sounding highs which create very life like female vocals, but they lack a lot of bass. To compensate I crossed my sub over at 110 Hz and this has worked much better in my room than I ever would have expected. Male vocals don't sound bad, but they're nothing special.
I was very surprised how noticeable the speaker distance to the wall was. Placing the speaker right on the wall created noticeably punchier and more engaging lows and mids than having the speaker just 20 cm out. I was also surprised how well the 3-4 db shelf below about 400 Hz generates a linear in room response when properly placed. I would still like wider dispersion to provide more of a sweet spot in this wide and shallow rectangle of a room.
For now I'm happy living with these speakers, but whenever I have time for a project I plan to design my own set of on-wall speakers aimed at providing slightly better bass extension and wider dispersion.
I was very surprised how noticeable the speaker distance to the wall was. Placing the speaker right on the wall created noticeably punchier and more engaging lows and mids than having the speaker just 20 cm out. I was also surprised how well the 3-4 db shelf below about 400 Hz generates a linear in room response when properly placed. I would still like wider dispersion to provide more of a sweet spot in this wide and shallow rectangle of a room.
For now I'm happy living with these speakers, but whenever I have time for a project I plan to design my own set of on-wall speakers aimed at providing slightly better bass extension and wider dispersion.