When those with audio knowledge come to understand that DML's are diffuse sound sources, the next question that might come up is, "Then how is my brain able to know where the sound is coming from?"

To explain this, we will need to speak of something called "The Precedence Effect" - or sometimes referred to "The Haas Effect / Law of the First Wavefront."

The Precedence Effect

When a DML 500 plays a sound, the absolute first microscopic fraction of a second of that acoustic energy travels directly from the panel to your ears in a straight line. A millisecond or two later, the diffuse, chaotic waves from the DML fill the room. Because of the way our brain works, it locks on to the very first arriving sound waves to determine where a sound is originating from, and then it completely discards directional information from any of the diffuse or reflected sound energy for 30-40 milliseconds. This is called "localization dominance."

A "Room-Sized" Sweet Spot

Once the brain has figured out where the sound originated from, the diffuse nature of the DML takes over. It fills the room evenly without the harsh, directional "beaming" of traditional loudspeakers. You don't have to sit in a single "sweet spot" to get a perfect sound image.

This is a very shallow peek into a very deep subject. If you would like to go deeper, below is a link to a research paper explaining The Precedence Effect in greater detail. 

Research Paper - The Precedence Effect in Sound Localization