Walk-in soundstage

Yes but only with my analog system and omni speakers (Shahinian Obelisks). I've yet to get to that level digitally but it could be that I need a tube DAC vs the Pontus II I'm currently running which has great width but lacks in immersive depth. 

Unless one lives in a very hot climate, I can’t imagine placing one’s system inside a walk-in...

I think its very speaker and room dependent. 

+1 @glennewdick 

In many years of listening to assorted systems - in dealers’ showrooms, audio shows and private homes - I’ve experienced ’a walk-in soundstage’ only with one system.   I could literally get out of the listening chair - from sitting to standing - and walk a few steps toward the speakers - before the illusion collapsed.   It was at Rick Becker’s house, a long-time reviewer for EnjoyTheMusic.   (Rick is a very gracious host - and very genuine with his observations.)

The phenomenon was actually like walking on to a stage.  Quite remarkable - and much fun to listen to.  A well-engineered recording provided the same effect with both LP & CD.  Both with classical and pop/rock music.   Average or poorly engineered recordings did not have the same effect.  

The system was set-up on the long wall on a 15ft x 40ft room with a cathedral ceiling.  The Kharma Ceramique 2.2 speakers were at least 6 ft out from the front wall.   Tube preamp & tube amp.  Much attention to clean power and quality cabling. 

I’ve heard many other systems that had a wonderful soundstage with wide and deep layering.  That alone is quite an accomplishment.

- - - 

Steve Huff is prone to hyperbole.   I don’t follow his reviews any longer.

@fastricky 

Thanks for sharing! This is actually the first time I’ve learned about the Shahinian Obelisks and their ability to create an enveloping soundfield.

Your observation about the Pontus II resonates with me. It definitely offers impressive width and tonal richness, but I’ve also learned it to be a bit reserved when it comes to the depth. Interestingly, someone recently discovered that adding a Harmony Micro DDC to the Pontus II helped him achieve noticeably deeper soundstage. A tube DAC might also take you further in that direction—it’s definitely worth exploring if you’re after that “walk-in” effect.

@steakster

Thank you for sharing that experience—what a vivid description! Being able to literally stand up and walk into the soundstage before the illusion broke down sounds truly extraordinary. Rick Becker’s setup must have been something special, especially with that room size, the Kharmas, and the attention to power and cabling. I imagine the cathedral ceiling played a big role in enhancing the spatial presentation too.

I agree—getting that kind of walk-in depth seems to require a perfect storm: excellent recordings, precise speaker placement, and a well-matched system in a well-treated space. It's interesting that both LP and CD sources could deliver it equally when the recording quality was there.

As for Steve Huff—I hear you. His enthusiasm can definitely be polarizing. Still, I find it interesting to compare perspectives, even if I take some of them with a grain of salt. He seems to have resonated with a certain kind of listener, but I understand why his style might not appeal to everyone.

Have you ever come close to replicating that walk-in effect in other systems you've heard, even if not quite to the same degree? I’d be curious to hear what other setups came close.

Walk-in soundstage?  Easy…with nitrous oxide!

Two out of five are already cracking jokes—guess soundstage still feels like a mission impossible for some.  I get it though—chasing that truly immersive, three-dimensional stage can feel elusive. When it clicks, it’s pure magic… almost like acoustic N₂O.  And I do believe this can be achieved with miniMax gears.

Steve Huff also talks to dead people. Have you seen those videos? A Kook.

I’ve only been able to hear a true walk around in the sound stage feel once with single driver speakers from Omega (SAM’s), probably the best sound stage I’ve ever heard. Granted they lacked in other areas. Second best was some Open baffles, but they need a specific room to optimise correctly. The smaller the speaker the better the sound staging IMO. Larger speakers tend to do that large sound stage that’s more of a wall of sound then a true walking in the sound stage type of thing.

To obtain that enveloping sound stage that puts you in the center of the event, right up there on stage with them, is hard to find with large multi driver speakers from my experience.

It's Steve Huff. He must embellish as always.

But you can have a system with pretty controlled dispersion patterns for both horizontal and vertical planes, they're pair matched as speakers within ±0.5dB, you have the room where masking is not an issue because of recurring reflections, echoes and ringing (basically you have a treated room using physics and listening and not just vibes) and the finally but the most important of them all, does the song in question have that psychoacoustic phenomenon baked in? Cos you're not getting a sprawling stage with a narrow mix or a mono mix no matter the amount of subjective blabber one can say

And I've achieved all in my space so I have a very unchanging presentation over a large space but not walk in stage. That's hyperbole unless you're running line arrays in your space akin to a music festival

kofibaffour, FWIW, I heard this phenomenon at a dealers once. Just an amazing experience and with modest equipment in a medium sized room. The music was a vinyl recording by Opus 3 of "Depth of Image’ played thru a CJ PV5/Threshold SA3 preamp/amp on small floorstanding Thiel 4 speakers. Outstanding. I then bought the recording and actually superior equipment as well as Thiel speakers and tried to duplicate the experience in my homes. I never came really close. But I learned a lot about audio equipment and set up in the process. The most important thing I learned was you had to have a recording that has the information embedded. 

Hyperbole, speaker dependent, I think not. 

@steakster +10

Mike

Mr. Huff is a writer, more than a reviewer.  I find every time I see a video of his, he goes on and says almost nothing.  There’s only so many flowery words, but he uses them over and over.

Regarding Huff, I still watch his videos to be informed on new gear, but I don't know that I can trust a reviewer that only listens to streaming over physical media. 2 cents. 

I did it with conventional power amps (class AB), no preamps, open-baffle mains, generous amounts of a great power-treatment solution, giving my speakers all the space to breathe they require, first-order crossovers all around and - perhaps most importantly -  I used a digital, speaker management system.

That last one let me actively multi-amp my system and ditch all the audible impacts of using passive crossovers. It also does wonders for the sheer coherency of the imaging/soundstage - front to back, left to right and top to bottom. From that you get that Gordian knot of dynamics, space and the time domain cleaved straight through, (both from mid-to-hi, and from mid-to-low crossover zones if you plan out your system well enough to achieve it). Plus you also get zero sibilance issues, in the bargain.

I plan to also add at some point an atomic clock to my DAC. Not yet certain what all that will improve, but I'm convinced it won't hurt a thing in that regard!

I first experienced it with Magnapans and a SUMO class A amp plying vinyl.  Yes substances were involved but I felt like I was inside John Klemmer's horn.  An experience that happened almost 50 years ago but  still remembered today.

I guess I can think of one system I have heard like his. It was a completely optimized Wilson Chronosonic something and Rowland system. Today I am sure Burmeister / dCS / Wilson will do this. The sitting position was actually about three feet in the air on a platform. The soundstage was so holographic and deep that you could literally hear images as spheres at different depths. The physical depth from the listeners position to the front wall was probably twenty feet. Images would start five feet or so in front of the you and extend three or four feet deep (high and wide as well). Different instruments, different sizes. The kick drums and like were at or in the front wall far behind the speakers. I got to spend a couple hours with it. The cost was around 3/4 million? It’s been a while. 

I was awestruck. But it wasn’t the sound I wanted in my home... but it was wonderful to listen to.

What I think is likely different about the way I did it and the way it was done for you @lanx0003 is that this is Not the kind of thing that collapses as soon as your head drifts out of a narrowly designed sweet spot. In fact it's the kind of walk-through stage that you can effectively 'walk through'. When I walk to the front wall and turn around I can see the same soundstage that I do when I'm in the listening seat. Never once does it roll off, fold, evaporate or collapse. From anywhere in the room.

My system is quite laid back, however. That means the more forward the center image is recorded in the mix, the more it will tend to follow your head as you move laterally to the side from the listening chair. But that's already a known effect of laid-back setups.

Is the way I did it here the ultimate in the walk-through effect? I'm thinking probably no, surely there exists somewhere a setup that beats it, it's just that I haven't run across it myself yet. But, I'm thinking there might be more than one way to achieve the effect.

I also experienced that bubble of sound at a local dealer.  It was a fairly large listening area definitely longer than my room and slightly wider.  No noticeable treatment but perhaps built in.  My listening room is 19’x26’x10’.  I went in to purchase a Bluesound node a few years ago and for whatever reason he let me listen to their dCS Vivaldi stack, Boulder stereo amp, and Wilson Alexia V.  All I can say is it was incredible but perhaps too good if that makes sense.  It took me awhile to re-appreciate my meager system.

@newbee I had the same experience with the same recording (specifically the track "Tiden Bara Gar").  It was in 1981 at Lyric Hi Fi in White Plains, NY, and I was choosing between Mission 770's and DCM Time Windows.  The DCM smeared the image and the resonances from the cabinet made the music sound boxy and muddy, but the Mission threw an image of the acoustic bass some 7' behind the speakers, with the other instruments interspersed within a wide, deep soundstage.  I bought the speakers, and the record, and was unable to recreate that feeling until recently with my purchase of Martin Logan ESL speakers, a Parasound A23+ amp and Schiit Kara pre.

I heard it at a friend's house years ago.  He had a nicely-proportioned room with minimal treatment, a pair of Nesterovich speakers and 40 watt tube monoblocks he built himself.  The Nesties were placed almost at the halfway point of the room.  The soundstage behind them was very realistic.

My venerable ProAc Response 2's will do it, and did do it in my old house, which had a long-ish living room with low ceilings.  But my current space is smaller and doesn't let them open up the way they did back then. :-(

I think it's mostly about speakers and the room, though components that excel in imaging will certainly help.

Have this in my HT room, it feel like you can feel the raindrop when it's raining, things are 3D positioned in the room. Door knocks always tip my dog out. However, it has 13 different speakers all over the room. Think it would be almost impossible to get this with 2 speakers alone. 

I've had that experience with my Marten Parker Duos that Steve Huff just reviewed; I've had mine for several years and I concur with him based on my experience (I enjoy his reviews). Those are driven by an MSB S-200 power amp with a Herron Audio tube line stage, a Herron Audio phono stage, and a Holo May DAC.

And some good cannabis is always a help, too! 

The most holographic and walk-in soundstage I've ever experienced is with Vivid Audio Giya G1 Spirit speakers (properly set up and with great electronics).  You feel like you can walk into the soundstage and shake the hands of the performers.

I speculate that this can be possible if speakers/amp and Room are in great synergy to create such an illusion. A well powered Maggie or ML or better still a MBL Radialstrahler in a room that is acoustically treated well to reproduce such an illusion.

closest I heard that has this illusion, but not truly walk in effect, was in a demo room that was well treated and speakers where Maggie 3.7 powered by Pass monoblocs. getting surreal 

 MBL room at last year’s CAF.

OP  "walk-in soundstage" "a deeply immersive, three-dimensional stereo image"

I liked above effects 10-30 years ago when hi-fi had nothing else going for. To accept these effects, I had to go through blurry vision, always tired, laziness, no energy, etc. because of the listener’s fatigue. And this immersive state in music session still stayed in my regular day time life (my ears are biased with immersive state) which gave me the listener’s fatigue against real natural sounds).

Above sound effects are due to un-natural hi-fi sounds, More I enjoy immersive sounds, I’m getting away from live music sounds. More above sound effects mean the audio sound more glare/veiled. You are walking into soundstage = you are walking into glare/veils (like the fog/distortion noise, not music field).

I was forced to listen my older reference cables with buyers 3 days ago and my ears became immersive hearing state (made me blurry vision, laziness, tired, no energy, etc.) and I was sick for a couple of days. My older cables sound so impressive that immersive ears don’t let me back to normal ears and still torture me after 3 days. I have more appointments with buyers and I’m very scared to hear these cable again. Alex/Wavetouch audio

top line MBL (but not the extreme) with $500K of electronics in an untreated room sounded immersive- like the listening position didn’t matter anymore.

i can’t even imagine what that system would sound like in a fully treated room.

At my first audio store, I demoed GoldenEar Triton with Parasound electronics. I was gobsmacked - first time I heard 3D from speakers.  

1. Subwoofers at the back of the room pull the soundstage toward the sweet spot.

2. How producers record the music makes a difference. ‘“I heard it through the grapevine” by Bill Frisell completely wraps around me. 
3. Components and cables matter.

When you can hear it, the illusion is like the difference between night and day.  Or an IMAX theatre and an everyday picture house.  It is like boosting an anemic garden hose and suddenly experiencing a wall-to-wall water spray.

In my opinion, it takes several factors to fool the ear/brain system into believing that sounds, actually coming from a couple of speakers, really represent a walk-around sound-space.

The ear/brain system includes a complex neural network that effectively operates in the digital domain.  When individual hairs inside your cochlear resonate to an incoming frequency, they transmit electrical pulses which indicate the initial timing and frequency.  The volume is indicated by the rapidity of repeating pulses.  These digital signals feed into a real neural network which 'learns' the meanings of the signals overs a few days and weeks, as individual neurons can disconnect and reconnect in a phenomenon known as brain plasticity.  (I sometimes wonder if the break-in period quoted for components and cables is actually the time it takes to reconfigure the listener's neurons!)

The ear/brain system has a much better chance of making sense of the audible world if it is fed clean signals on which to build its processing network.  In my opinion, by far the biggest muddlers of the waters are loudspeakers, especially if they have drivers which are widely separated.  That's over 99.9% of them, right?

Why is this so?  Well, you can correct for time alignment only in one dimension, for example the vertical with D'Appolito driver arrangements.  In every other dimension, reflections from walls, floor and ceiling are not time aligned - they arrive in a confusing mess which is why audiophiles with such speakers think the room, and its reflections, are so important.

But if the speaker behaves like a coherent, single point-source of sound, the ear/brain system stands a good chance of making out an illusion of something sensible, like a walk-around soundscape.  This is especially true if the listener has attended many live-music events, preferably un-amplified.

In my personal experience, very few speakers have been designed to mimic a point source of sound.  (They cannot actually be a point source, because the energy density would rise to infinity at the point!)  The speakers I am most familiar with are Quad electrostatics from the ESL-63 and later.  Although they have a big flat panel, they are driven to emulate a point source a foot behind the panel.  These have been my main speakers for about four decades, plenty of time to tune my personal neural network.  They don't have a sweet spot - you can stand up and walk around them and the image stays much the same.  When I audition speakers, I usually walk around to see what happens.

The other speakers I am familiar with are KEF speakers also designed to emulate a point-source.  Normally when I hear box speakers, I hear a box, but one day I walked past a pair of KEF LS50 speakers and the sound-field felt solid.  Later I auditioned their big brother Reference 1 speakers against conventional speakers from Sonus faber, B & W and so on.  By comparison, the KEFs just throw a huge, wall-to-wall soundstage.  I do not know if other people hear this!

(It is possible that speakers which emulate a single line source are coherent enough but I have not had a chance to listen to them)

I'd better describe my set up.  It looks like a decent enough two-channel arrangement with either Quad electrostatic or KEF Reference 1 speakers driven by a class A Krell amplifier, plus an 18" servo-controlled subwoofer.  I get the walk-though effect with a sound stage that extends way past the speakers, from any decent two-channel recording on CD or record.

The room is just my living room with no special sound treatment, though the floor is carpeted and there are pretty heavy curtains.  A 65" OLED TV sits between and just behind the speakers, but I do not consider this to be a home theatre, although the TV plays though the main speakers.  Actually, it can play though additional rear speakers and four height speakers if supported by the program.  So I have a 4.4.1 set-up capable of playing 5-channel SACD (but deliberately without a centre speaker) or Pure Audio Blu-ray including Dolby Atmos.

With good source material, this is truly immersive.  Classical music has been widely available on SACD for 25 years and I do not think I have a poorly recorded SACD.  Norwegian label 2L (2L - the Nordic Sound) have stunning immersive sound delivered on SACD and Pure Audio Blu-ray (DTS and Atmos).

Last week I went to an organ recital at the Sydney Opera House, and in the interval picked up a ten CD set of all Olivier Latry's organ recordings from Deutsche Grammophon.  The set had a bonus Blu-ray including multi-channel DTS and Dolby Atmos recorded in Notre Dame, Paris.  I have never been to Notre Dame so I don't know what it sounds like in real life, but in Dolby Atmos my entire room became the sound-stage.

Make sense @richardbrand, that might well be the magic of a well-integrated point-source design. When phase and timing cues are preserved, our auditory system can reconstruct a believable, three-dimensional acoustic scene. And for listeners with plenty of live, unamplified music experience, those references make it even easier for the brain to “fill in” the realism, almost like muscle memory for the ears.

The KEF Ref. 1 is “one of the most 3-D soundstages I have heard to date,” as praised by Erin, even though its horizontal dispersion isn’t particularly wide. What really amazes me is the Quad ESL-63, which emulates a ‘virtual’ point source behind its large flat diaphragm. Learned something new today. I wish I could also grab one on the used market.

So far, it seems the discussion has focused mainly on the speakers that create the magic, but I want to emphasize again that the digital (or analog) front end also plays a vital role in delivering precise, focused imaging, clear instrument separation, and a dark background. To that end, I’d like to hear more from users about your transport, DAC, and/or cable components.

Four Walsh in the 'corners'.....
Always working on 'ignoring the room', and having some improvements at it.

Most of what I'm up to is that.

@lanx0003 

I’d like to hear more from users about your transport, DAC, and/or cable components

You asked, so here's mine, which will be vastly different to most in North America!

Because I live in Australia, my house is fed 240-Volts AC (often closer to 250) and I have done nothing with power cables or power conditioning.  I use whatever the component manufacturer included.

My digital transport is a Reavon universal disk player, which handles CD, SACD, DVD and Blu-ray up to 4K.  The Reavon uses much of the internals of the now discontinued Oppo players, but with far inferior DACs.  So I just use it as a transport with two HDMI outputs, one for audio.  The HDMI cables are not audiophile grade, but are high-speed with Ethernet which in my opinion is all you need

I mainly feed a Marantz 8802 AV pre-processor which does have really good DAC chip sets from AKM.  From there it is balanced van der Hul cables to my Krell power amplifier.  Old Naim speaker cables run to my Quad ESL-2905 which are signal input voltage limited to 40-Volts.  I splurged on second-hand QED silver plated cables for the KEF Reference 1 speakers for no particular reason except that they can take more input current than the ESLs and I thought I should give them a chance to shine.  The subwoofer is a Velodyne DD18 rated at 1.25-kW RMS which I normally feed with a balanced cable.  It can be configured with high-pass balanced outputs to feed the power amplifier, which is good for reducing the signal to the Quad ESLs but a pain when switching to the KEF speakers.

The other six speakers are fed through a Perreaux 6160 6-channel power amplifier, unbalanced.

The overall sound quality is so good that I could tell within a few seconds that there was something wrong with the way the Reavon output from SACDs through its internal DACs.  Sure enough, it turned out that it reduces Direct Stream Digital to CD-quality Pulse Code Modulation, ie from 2.8 Mbps to 16-bit at 44-kHz.  It is fine as a transport, so I have to somewhat agree that the digital source can make a difference, at least to sound quality if not to sound stage!

I have never heard digital without a dark background, and clear instrument separation does not occur with large-scale classical in a concert hall.  But with separately miked and mixed pop there can be pin-point artificial precision - try Dire Straits Brothers in Arms on 5-channel SACD or Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon in Dolby Atmos to hear what I mean.  Not available on streaming services, as far as I know.

I generally only change things when they no longer work!

The older Alon’s could sure disappear in a room, my IV’s were amazing that way.

A “walk-in” soundstage is 90% the room and speaker placement. I first heard this effect at Acoustic Sounds. I have since achieved it in my system but it took room treatment to get there. 
 

No DAC or source is going to be responsible for achieving the effect. Steve Huff is just full of fluff. 

Are you sure?  Let me ask you or ask yourself, if your DAC gives you wall of sound like many entry level or mid-tier DACs do, how are you going to achieve that?

Walking into soundstage = walking into glare/veils/distortion noises (like the fog). These glare/veils are thin/light with simple audio systems. Adding more components (like a separate DAC) increases strong glare/noises. And we are drown into these harsh glare/noises. We've been hearing these un-natural sounds too long, it became norm. But some people can't stand it. Alex/Wavetouch audio

I experienced a holographic stage back in the mid eighties with a Spectral DMC-10 preamp and a Spectral DMA-50 amp through several speakers back then.  Particularly recordings of small club venues where it sounds like I could walk between the tables.   Since then, I've experienced that many times.  I get the effect through a particular recording; Prokofiev - Ivan the Terrible - Slatkin MFSL Super Audio CD Hybrid Multich UDSACD 4003, on almost any decent system I play it on.  Not sure, but I think the recording has a lot to do with it.

Just set your Audio System up in your wife’s walk in closet.  Mission accomplished!    😀

I know what Steve Huff meant. Steve listen to a lot of gear and speakers just like other reviewers. And I believe He discover this soundstage walk in soundstage. I think if you have a very good system with musicality with holographic sound ? And listen nearfield. Yes you can experience it. I have 3 systems tube and ss. I rotate my 14 pair of speakers and cabling at times. To my surprise I do discover a lot of sound that I did not know before. I encourage audiophiles to listen more on different systems , you will be surprised how much you will learned and discover.

Some of the recordings especially UHQCD and their analog recordings can do Walkin in closet soundstage.They are available at Elusive disc.

Steve Huff is not right all the time but He is passionate on audio. Any reviewer it’s up to the reader to believe them or not. Iam a fan of Teajay , and Kal Robinson. I do appreciate Steve Huff sharing his experience.I end up buying Borensen x1 because of his review. He is right on the money.

I get the hyperbole, he just means to say holographic. In order to get walk in ss one would have to be immersed in one, multi channel, surround sound could provide an actual walk in ss. 

With reviewers one has to learn to read between the lines. You know they really like something when they purchase items under review.

In this site I notice many will not agree because of lack of experience and their listening skill are not the same level as the reviewers, I totally understand that ? I’ve been there.I listen a lot and discover a lot as well.unfortunately many old timers agoners no longer post ihere to share their knowledge and experience.

SNS on surround sound indeed walk in soundstage is easy to accomplish, but the sound quality won’t be as good on two channel. It’s really a challenge to do it on channel.

I'd never even attempt, to do it at level I'd want would be so costly!

Are you sure?  Let me ask you or ask yourself, if your DAC gives you wall of sound like many entry level or mid-tier DACs do, how are you going to achieve that?

100% positive. Yes, a walk-in soundstage is indeed >/= 90% room and speakers. The majority of the remaining 10% or so is the amplification. I’ve heard enough $60K+ digital front ends paired with six figure speakers in enough rooms to know that the front end accounts for nearly zero of the effect, because many of those systems failed to produce said effect. Money ≠ equal performance when it comes to digital components. It did once upon a time, but not these days. 

Ask yourself, how many times have you supplemented a $300 DAC for a five figure DAC in a six figure system? Unlike most if not all fans of Steve Puff, I’ve actually tried similar experiments and the sound didn’t change a lick. Thing is, if you really want and expect to experience a life altering improvement, you likely will, at least, initially. That’s the same condition that afflicts Mr. Huff, unfortunately, he hears what he wants to, until the next flavor-of-the-month arrives at his doorstep. But hey, the guy also thinks he can communicate with the ghost of Michael Jackson, so…

@vitussl101 

Prokofiev - Ivan the Terrible - Slatkin MFSL Super Audio CD Hybrid Multich UDSACD 4003

Do you get the walk-in (or walk round) effect on 5-channel DSD playback, and/or DSD 2-channel playback and/or CD playback from that disk?

My experience suggests that with decent speakers, all three formats will produce a walk-round sound-stage though it is more obvious with surround sound!