Martin Logan SL3 missing soundstage

Carlo,
I owned the SL-3's for nine years and it sounds like you have the speakers set up ok....my guess is the solid state amplification is the culprit on lack of soundstaging unless you have the equipment rack or big furniture in between speakers...unfortunately those speakers require a high current amp with lots of muscle so you can't go tube integrated but a tube preamp will probably give you what you're looking for.
regards,
Larry

Thanks Larry, I'll keep that in mind...I know that MF makes the KW and it is a tube pre-amp, I have to get to listen to it...

I used the SL3s for a couple of years and I found that if placed right, soundstage was never an issue. I had other issues eventually but soundstage was not one of them. I have noticed that soundstage comes and goes with listening height and how much reflection comes off the back walls (both the ones behind the speakers and the ones behind you), which means you might want to either try to put something behind the speakers which will dampen or break up the backwave, or move them a bit further out. On the height aspect, I noticed that based on my particular listening position, I had to have the spikes on the back a bit longer than on the front (to tip the speaker a bit more vertical) in order to make the treble come out right. May have been because I was both seated a bit far away and my sofa was positioned quite low.

OTOH, Larryken might be right on solid state amplification having something to do with the impression of flatness. I never did like pure solid state with them. The closest I wanted to get was either hybrid or the InnerSound ESL amps, which were quite good with the SL3s.

move around for best results. amp is not an issue

"I have heavy curtains on the back"...

Do you mean behind the speakers? If so try taking them down. You should not be deadening the back wave from your speakers. Diffusion/dispersion is what you are after. You can use something else to disperse the back wave.

FWIW in setting up dipoles/panels/electrostats 3ft into the room is not going to give you optimum imaging. There will not be enuf delay between the original signal and the back wave signal. For this reason 5' is usually optimum.

Can't tell where your listening position is but I assume it is triangulated and about 7 to 8 ft back from the plane of the speakers. If you put the speakers on the short wall out into the room about 4 feet, about 8 ft apart, and your chair about 4 ft from the wall behind the chair, with a dispersive materiel on the wall behind the speakers, you should get great imaging.

I realize you may have decorative/domestic considerations, but I think think might be a set up that would work well if you could do it (or at least try it).

P.S. I don't think what you describe has anything to do with equipment. If you had good imaging before you should have it again, even better, not worse. Note I'm not saying you can't get better imaging with better stuff, but if I were you I wouldn't go there until you have optimized set up. Stats and panels can take a while to set up properly. It took me nearly a year of playing with Quad 63's 'til I got it right (mostly due to inexperience and a lack of good advise from others).