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?
I used to confuse soundstage with ambience. Sometimes I wanted better sound stage, but I really wanted more ambience, and vice versa. If you are using a DAC and solid state amp, soundstage comes from the recording, speakers, speaker placement and angle, and room in my experience. I find a turntable and tube amp can make a difference too. It sort of makes sense when you think about it. Now ambience, that is something different. Lots of things affect ambience. Ambience is not only on the recording. It is something you create in your room to make yourself think you are listening to a live performance. Ambience is fake, but it sounds great. |
@erik_squires You are correct, I didn’t understand what you meant by the term ‘diffusion’ and confused it with reflective surfaces in the sound path which are treated with absorption; thank you for the full description of what diffusion is, why it helps, and how it can be created. @stuartk I haven’t played with it much; downstairs the system is in a ‘temporary’ location and I don’t want to invest too much time on them, but they are on casters. If I can clear the floor space, I will experiment. I have PS Audio’s test CD for the purpose. Upstairs, the tweeter towers are screwed to the walls, I may be able to tweak the bass cabinets a bit, I’ll try it, they aren’t that heavy, but I can’t move them far as they’re tethered to the tweeter columns, but I can try different things, that’s why I bought the test equipment. @simao I’ll try to find those threads, sounds like they would be worth a listen. @othercrazycanuck I like your distinction. Using your terms, I want more ambience in my system for every recording so that when one comes along that has some staging, I get the full effect. I fear that may be a challenge for the system upstairs (with speakers against the wall), although I really like the quality of the sound I get from the McIntosh speakers. The system downstairs, with the B&W 801 speakers offers greater opportunity for tuning, the speakers seem to be much clearer and have much better imaging. Thanks for your response. |
Ambiance and soundstage... I think that it is a great acoustic distinction... Thanks @othercrazycanuck |
