Quote: Originally Posted by
turbocad6 
so how do you get nice imaging & staging on both sides when the opposite speaker is over 3 times the distance from you as the closer driver?
Even though the drivers side speaker is closer to you it is going to be more off axis than the speaker on the passengers side. The more off axis a driver is the more attentuated it sounds, while the farther speaker being more on axis is going to sound louder. This is what's known as time/intensity trading.
Your horns do this as well, but in a different way. The horn shape is designed to have more output to the side then straight ahead. Combined with their extra long path lengths (kickpanel + a bit extra) they are able to create that nice stage for both listners.
Just for general knowledge to everyone reading this:
We as humans are much more sensitive to time differences in sound positioning left to right because our ears are on each side of our head. Makes sense, huh? On the other hand, we have a hard time determining sound positioning up and down. Our ears just weren't designed for it. That's why you can often seperate the mids and tweets vertically and still have a good single image. Even with the mids and tweets in the kicks you can have a nice high soundstage, although reflections from the dash underside or center console can complicate things. If you seperate them and have the tweets up high with the mids in the kicks you can still get good imaging as long as the path lengths are the same from both drivers to your ear.
Just look at any home speaker where dash boards and door panels are not a factor. You'll always see the drivers lined up vertically and never horizontally.