I think you are right on the spot...
In my room anything goes amok untill i determined the right spot for diffusion and absorption and reflection time... Any small room is a puzzle ...
From whence does Sound Stage come?
What drew me back to this hobby after dabbling in High School, was listening to a friend’s system, in a room over his garage filled with over-stuffed furniture, at least seven different amplifiers and twice that many speakers. What was new to me was a room literally filled with sound, and I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I climbed over the furniture and put my ear to speaker after speaker, but I was never able to locate the source of the sound. It was a wonderful, awe-filled, experience.
Fast forward to the present. I have now built several systems, in different rooms, with different components. Sometimes I get a ‘sound stage’ where the speakers disappear, sometimes I don’t. I have been told that getting the speakers to disappear is all a matter of placement in the room: “Give me your room dimensions; and I’ll tell you where to place your speakers.” But I can tell you, some speakers disappear, and some speakers announce their presence with every note. I have had odd staging where a particular sound appeared un-naturally at the wrong place (like a cymbal hit at my feet); only to have the issue resolved to a more coherent shape with an upgrade to the analog output stage of the DAC. I have had a decent sound stage cast by a particular pair of speakers, only to have it destroyed with the use of a sub-par power amplifier. I’ve heard reviewers and designers talk about how their component offers sound stage depth as well as width (depth seems to be more difficult to achieve). And then there is the old canard about how tube amps present a ‘halo graphic’ sound stage. I can detail the equipment configurations that have I have put together that succeeded or failed at the goal of presenting a great sound stage, but I’m trying to ask a general question, I am not a bot, and I’m not seeking help with a particular configuration, just help on developing a strategy to tackle the issue of sound stage and imaging of instruments within it.
I will say that the best sounding solutions I have developed thus far both involved a Schiit Yggdrasil (now at ‘Less-is-More) into a SS McIntosh C100 (circa 1992) and either a tube Rogue ‘Stereo 100’ or a SS McIntosh MC252 power amp powering either the Warfedale W70E or B&W 801 Matrix speakers. If I substitute different amps, speakers, preamp, or DAC, the pyramid crumbles and I start hearing two speakers again; I lose my ‘sound stage,’ which is really concerning (to me). Anyone with more than two years into this hobby is qualified to address this question. I need some help, I can’t just keep throwing equipment (and money) at this issue. Any ideas?
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- 90 posts total
Personally, I would work on my system being musically engaging with your favored tonality, dynamics and inner detail. That would be my core system. Next, I would search for, or post a thread requesting great imaging recordings with a request for the contributor to let me know what aspect of imaging impressed them with the piece. Then I would work on room acoustics, speaker and listener position and so on to maximize not only the above, but soundstaging. Lastly, you could revisit components to see if different this or that might improve things. Room acoustics has to be a big part of this, but you can’t be changing everything all the time. I had my system setup to where I thought that everything sounded great and then one day I slumped down in my chair and laid my head back a bit and the soundstage just expanded in every direction. If I were smarter, I would tilt my speakers up a bit. Today, I discovered that my amp/speaker connection wasn’t correct. I moved my speaker cables from the 8 to 4 ohm amplifier output and it was as if a veil was lifted from the music. In neither case did I realize that my system wasn’t optimized. |
The soundstage can always only be as good as what’s on the recording, and a good setup should reveal huge differences between recordings. Lousy recording, lousy soundstage. Phase coherency and time alignment of the drivers are significant contributors to good sound stage....kind of tough to make much progress if the speaker design isn’t up to snuff. The room is a major part. Speaker position and listening position within the room are key areas to pay attention to. Every room is different, so experimentation is critical. You can follow good rule of thumb practices as a starting point, but use your ears to fine tune. Room treatment to address reflections, resonances, standing waves, and nodes, etc., can be done with carpet, drapes, and furniture, or aftermarket or DIY wall and ceiling treatments, and bass traps ... all can help tame the room. Its and art and science in itself. Transparency of the system is also a significant factor...superb clarity reveals more of what’s on the recording. The whole system (speakers, amps, cables, crossovers, wires, connectors, preamps, phono stages, DACs, carts, TTs, tonearms, streamers, EQs, etc....everything in the path) has the potential to mask what’s available on the recording....all do to some degree. The difficult part is chasing down clarity in that entire path. Vibration damping and isolation of components is worth pursuing to optimize what you have. There’s no way around trial and error, and there will be many occasions of two steps forward, one step back (or vice-versa), but every step forward should reveal a bit more of what's on that recording. It’s a journey....enjoy! |
@vonhelmholtz and @knotscott Thank you both for your insight and encouragement. I’m just starting to dial my rooms in. I was a bit despondent after putting out the effort to maximize the power available to each speaker. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was in the nature of an improvement. :-) I am resolved to continue the journey and try to leave a trail of breadcrumbs so that I can find my way back, if a change doesn’t properly appease the audio gods. |
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