Topband: 60' or 70' spacing on Hi-Z 4/8 element RX array

[StellarCAT]

I just purchased a HiZ 8 element array ... and am trying to decide which way I want to go. I want a bit better performance on 40 than the standard 80’ spacing provides (lobes are quite high angled) ... and going down to 70’ improves 40 a good bit – going to 60’ even more so (and improves, from an RDF standpoint, both 160 and 80!) ... I’ve modeled all conditions. I see the Total power however suffers a good bit when going down in size due to lost ‘aperture’ effect ... on 160 meters going from 80/20 (height of vertical) down to 70’/20 is a –3db loss in total power ... going to a 60’/20 is –6.6db. Lee assures me that this won’t have any real effect here unless my ... if I understand him correctly, local noise is very low – which it isn’t it turns out ... and I was wondering how others using smaller spacing, either 60’ or 70’, like the overall performance on 160 especially as well as 80? 

thanks for your time,

Gary 
K9RX

[this is not to second guess Lee, this is rather just a ‘comfort’ request ... I am still at a bit of a loss when he says it will be a loss of –6.6db going from 80 to 60 foot and yet I won’t notice the difference! Not sure what the real world implications of that are in the headphones. This will be using their new Plus6 preamps]