My apologies. Please assume the word "many" in front of the word "audiophiles." There are always exceptions. And please remember that the point is not just about the speakers, but the room and the setup. Given enough distance from the speaker, yes, I'm sure huge speakers can image small ensembles. How far back from your speakers do you sit? How much free space is around them? Here are the Alexandrias...
View attachment 6584
I don't know how tall Mr. Wilson is, but he seems to consistently be the tallest man in every group photo I've seen him in. So that tweeter is 4.5, 5 feet off the floor. That tweeter carries the attack transients of nearly every instrument recorded, and the attack transient is what our hearing and brain use to "locate" sounds. Sit down, 10 or 12 feet away from those speakers, and those locating transients are well above your head. Now, make your classic equilateral triangle. Get those speakers out far enough away from the walls to work properly. get the listening position far enough away from the wall behind it. You've got a pretty good system setup for a listen distance of 10 - 12 feet in a room, what? Pretty close to 20 x 20. That's a good sized room, and the perspective is still such that the sound stage would assume your string quartet is up on a high stage and you're in one of the first few rows.
Unless you're telling me that the dispersion of the tweeters (the most directional of all speakers) in those Alexandrias are so good that their vertical position in the array is completely transparent. That would be very, very good. I've played with speaker position for years. I'm absolutely convinced that you get the best imaging if the tweeters are very close to ear level. I don't seem to be the only one who has come to this conclusion. The inability to place tweeters and woofers optimally, is, IMO, the Achilles heel of super-sized floor standers. All speaker types have their weakness. This is theirs. At least that's the way I hear it. YMMV.
Tim
Tim,
It is what it is impressive with well setup Alexandria's - you are not listening to the treble from tweeters or middle frequencies from the medium speakers - the whole sound integrates at a level similar to your ear. The scale of the speaker is not given by soundstage height, but for the power of the sources in the illusionary soundstage.
The Aida's tweeters height is around 52" - although my ears are around 36" I have never had the feeling that you are referring - I was just listening to a Jordi Savall recording with plenty of percussive treble and the instruments were in the adequate positions for this recording. I seat typically at 12 feet. One great tall speaker that also had perfect treble plane height was the Thiel CS5.
However, I agree with you that if these tall speakers are not properly setup you can get the very disagreeable feeling that the treble sound is coming from the upper corners of the room.