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Moving from mid-fi to hi-fi -- Imaging questions

Hi. I am in the processing fine tuning the placement of my Magnepan 3.6's. I am new to the kind of detailed imaging these magnificent speakers provide. A few questions arise ...

What does it mean when I have excellent imaging but the instruments are in the wrong place? For example, I can pinpoint the high-hat cymbals and the snare drum but they are like 6 feet apart. I know from playing drums that that is just not possible. Also on drums, the distance when between tom toms is unrealistic -- like on the out edges of all the other instruments.

Sometimes voices are right on top of each other when I feel sure one is actually standing on the left and one on the right. Other times, the voices are clearly side by side.

I have a wide variety of cds, many considered audiophile grade. I am wondering if these are differences in the way the recording and or mixing is done. Overall, the music sounds great and imaging is exquisite but I want to get the most these speakers offer. Do I need to keep working my placement or am I reaching the limit of the source material?

As a side question: Is there any difference in the quality of manufactured CDs? I read once that some cds (BMG for example) were lower quality. I always buy my music used. Is there any difference in brands of cds? And down side to buying used cds?

Thanks all.
mcmanus
nsgarch's avatar
nsgarch
2,524 posts
 
What are the dimensions of your room?
maclogan
49 posts
 
You don't need super high-end speakers to hear the atrocities perpetrated by some recording engineers (or insisted upon by ignorant musicians). The piano keyboard as wide as a symphony orchestra, the timpani covering the entire back wall, a single flute overpowering an orchestral tutti - these are all well known phenomena even on good labels, and are readily audible on "mid-fi" equipment. They just sound worse when you upgrade.
mcmanus OP
82 posts
 
Nsgarch - my room is 19' by 18' with a valuted ceiling and no room treatments yet. The speakers have been 3' to 8' from the back wall and 3' to 6' from the side walls at various times. Right now they are 3' from back and side. The tweeters are 11 feet apart and my sitting position is 8' from the tweeter.
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Your current listening triangle by conventional standards is overly broad (speakers, or at least tweeters, 11' apart, you only 8' away from a tweeter, which means you're even closer to the hypotenuse). This will tend to work against natural perspective and imaging. I would experiment with a layout that describes an equilateral triangle at most, or even more typically with your listening position being a bit farther away from the imaginary line connecting the speakers than the speakers are spread apart from each other. If you can manage it, I would also try to place the speakers along the wall at the low end of the vaulted ceiling, so the ceiling slopes upward in the direction of your seating position. (Plus what Mthieme said about placing the tweeters to the inside if you aren't.)
aball
2,016 posts
 
The Stereophile test CD 2 is my personal favorite because the booklet that accompanies it has pictures of the performers on location, as viewed by the microphones. This way you can listen and compare with the pictures to see if your imaging is indeed good. They used minimal mics so that you don't have to account for mixing and they tell you about the room so you know how much reverb to expect. Really cool. Arthur
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