Another soundstage question

Thanks for the topic, @kalali. I have been working on the same thing. My soundstage is centered about ear/eye level. I don't know why that feels too low; but it does. My speakers are Canton Ergo 1002DCs,  with tweeters about 35" off the concrete floor and mids at 42". My ceiling is a drop type, unfortunately, only about 7' high in most places. Speakers are 7.5' apart, 2.5' from the wall, and I sit 9' back with no wall behind me for 15'. Side wall distances are 3' to left and 20' to right and all walls are broken up with furniture. Canton recommends no toe in; but I prefer 5 degrees.

Raking back made things worse. Removing carpet between me and the speakers actually helped. Recently I raised the speakers about 2.5" and it seems to have raised the vocals about a foot. I would really like to see what removing the drop ceiling would do; but I'll never get away with that, even in the basement. Any other suggestions? Beside tubes.

line source - speakers

I actually just bought a tube preamp from Aric Audio - the Unlimited model, about a month or so ago and I'm finally enjoying the so called mid-range bloom that everyone talks about. It makes the soundstage seem noticeably more layered with more air around the vocals and instruments, particularly horns in smaller ensembles. The vocals just sound more live. The height element is very deceptive though since it is very content dependent and could very well be absent to begin with especially since the majority of the music is recorded in a studio setting. I don't know if it's even possible for the recording engineers to "add" height to the recording.  They can add depth pretty good  not so sure about relative height. Maybe someone can give some insight if that is indeed possible. 

I got a bit fanatical about speaker placement geometry a couple of years ago after purchase of a pair of gently used Genesis 6.1s.  These speakers are capable of sounding sublime with proper placement and associated gear but can sound horrible when poorly positioned. After about a year of trying new placement, footers,  room tuning, etc., I was finally getting decent sound from them but no way close to my expectations for what a 10K speaker should do - still not even close to my 25 year-old Snell B's in the same system.  The imaging was supposed to be the forte of these things, but I couldn't get the soundstage nearly as wide or deep as the venerable B's and briefly considered selling them.  

I was desperate for advice other than upgrade my amps, preamp and cabling (all of which I had already done)  when I discovered a white-paper written by Gary Koh, the designer and top dog a genesis on speaker placement.  It seems that Mr. Koh writes as well as he designs speaker systems.  The link below will take you to  "The Genesis Loudspeaker Setup Procedure".  This paper discusses every facet of speaker placement and suggests actual musical pieces that he and his installers use to get their most expensive systems on song in just a day or two - much better than my year or more.  It describes 10 steps to methodically establish the actual adjustments with musical selections tailored for each adjustment. 

Although meant originally for the Genesis product line,  this paper can be used to systematically adjust each parameter while listening to the recommended track to spotlight the changes you make.  It helped me to finally get my system sounding better than I had ever imagined I would hear in my own home. 

http://www.genesisloudspeakers.com/whitepaper/Genesis_Loudspeaker_Setup_Procedure.pdf  

Mcb

but did it beat the Snells ? A fantastic speaker btw imo

also thanks for posting the link
good to learn another approach !!!!