My soundstage is terrible. i need help bad.

Flyin2jz.

In responds to your question "How far out in front of the tv do the speakers need to be?" you're going to have to experiment with your own speakers, and find how far forward to go. With my speakers (Madisound AR.coms), I moved them 15" forward of the front of my entertainment cabinet, and that seem to get me the best mix of soundstage and bass responds. Truth is, speaker placement is often a trial and error type of thing simply because of the different variations of people's rooms, furnishing, listening wants and needs, ect.

To suggest the quality of your amplification, CDP and pre cannot positively impact the size and depth of the soundstage you are perceiving is simply rubbish....and so is the claim that only omni-directional speakers can throw a solid and large soundstage! Your speakers are fine and are capable of doing what you wish....

I would in order:

1. Check, play with, and/or tweak the Speaker set up as recommended above,
2. Upgrade your CDP and Amplification,
3. Treat the Room,

One or all three should get you were you want to be...

Enjoy the ride!

John

You speak of room treatment... I just moved to Scottsdale, Arizona from Short Hills, New Jersey. My stereo system sounded wonderful there. When I got here, the system sounded awful... like it was playing in a steel drum. The room here is 16 feet wide, 30 feet long with 12 foot (not cathedral) ceilings. The floor is French limestone solid with no basement. It was awful. I got furniture, rugs, big live cactus for the corners, etc. It sounded better but awful until a few days ago. The draperies were installed. One whole side wall (30 ft) is glass which looks out over the pool and gardens...very nice. The drapes are sheer panels of silk/linen..3 panels ..one on each side, and one about in the middle. The panels are only about 2 feet wide or so. Suddenly the bass extends way deep down in the netherworld... the mids have depth and air...there was none at all before..the highs are silky sweet...they were brittle and unpleasant before. What a surprise.. 3 light and airy pieces of cloth really brought the whole thing together. I would never have guessed..

Hey, Stringreen! Did you change orchestras, or are you doing something different in AZ? You're a violinist, right? My brother is a cellist in Atlanta, who teaches a lot and plays in a string quartet. I grew up listening to a lot of cello! He studied under Lynn Harrell for a year.

I can weigh in on your room acclimatization experience. I just got a pair of Mirage OMD-15 forward-biased omnidirectional floorstanding speakers and I've been spending the last two weeks breaking them in and dialing them into the room as well. Being nearly omnidirectional, the user manual has many suggestions on speaker placement and what are desirable and undesirable wall surfaces. One that it particularly mentioned was that uncovered glass would produce too much sonic glare and brightness.

Behind each of my speakers is a tall narrow window. Typically, they're covered by both a pleated cloth shade *and* a pair of drapes--not heavy, but not sheer either. In attempting to dial in a fuller soundstage, I pulled back the curtains and raised the shade. The change was subtle, but it took awhile to get a handle on it. After a couple days I decided it brightened the sound a bit too much, so I pulled down the pleated shades again, but left the curtains open, and *voila!* The tonal balance fell into place and the imaging focus sharpened up.

Johnnyb53...Yes - I am a violinist. Actually, I intended to retire and just play for myself, but a private school here heard I had moved and asked me to run an instrumental music department. It will be better than practicing long hours and readying for a performance, and I just might do it. I met Lynn a number of years ago. Nice man..