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Looking for speakers with soundstage depth

I guess that's what it's called. There have been some really nice speakers in my system over the last few years including Vandersteen 2CE signatures, Meadowlark Audio Kestrel IIs, Revel Performa M-20s and a few others. The Revels were the most accurate speakers I've owned but when I pulled my trusty old Kestrel Hot Rods out of the closet I was once again caught by there very natural and fun to listen to sound. Even though over the past four months I've had numerous "never heard tha in there before" moments with the Revels, I sold them.
What the small, unassuming Kestrel HRs give me is a 3 dimensional soundstage that none of the other speakers could match. It was also the first time I had hooked them to the Bel Canto eVo2i which was an eye opener. BTW, I'm pretty much convinced it's the coherent time alignment that contributes the effect.
So my question is what speakers under 2K (used) will provide what I'm looking for? The newer Thiel 1.6 or Thiel 2.3 might do it. Maybe something like a pair of Magnepan 12s?
My room is small but well treated. Any suggestions or should I just stop looking? Thanks.
timrhu
williewonka
3,082 posts
 
@timrhu - I'm with a couple of other posters - best improvements to imaging have been gained by introducing good cables throughtout the system. 

Also adding quality cone feet under components was the icing on the cake

My cables removed noise from my system allowing the components to amplify L/R channels more precisly which in turn  positioned the artists exactly where they should be within the image and expanded the image beyond the listening room walls

My listening room is quite spacous and the speakers are 8ft from the wall behind them - which helps a lot.

What cables do you have currently ?
dave_b's avatar
dave_b
3,159 posts
 
Oh sh.t!!  Didn’t see that :()
rodman99999
6,167 posts
 
Still, lots of good information, in most of the thread. It was presumptuous, to have spoken for the OP. My apologies(if you’re still out there), Tim!
shadys
10 posts
 
I have a pair of magnepan mg12s that do a great job at image depth provided I get them out into the room, say 3+ feet fro the wall.  With good recordings the image depth often appears to go beyond the front wall.
audiokinesis
2,748 posts
 

Shadys wrote:  "I have a pair of magnepan mg12s that do a great job at image depth provided I get them out into the room, say 3+ feet from the wall.  With good recordings the image depth often appears to go beyond the front wall."

YESSS!!!

That is exactly what I have found with dipole speakers.  Once you get beyond about 3 feet (and 5 feet is REALLY good), just about everything - including in particular the soundstage depth - improves.  Here is what is happening, I think:

The ear/brain system judges the size of the room by the time delay between the first-arrival sound and the "center of gravity" of the reflections.  As you move dipole speakers farther out from the wall behind them, you are delaying the onset of the reflected backwave, and thereby correspondingly pushing that "center of gravity" back in time.  The ear/brain system interprets this as "you're in a bigger room", and thus super-imposes less "small room signature" on top of the recording. 

Along similar lines, in designing a recording studio, the acoustician tries to prevent significant early reflections from reaching the recording engineer's ears in the control room earlier than the natural reflections in the live room where the recording was made.  This way the recording engineer can hear the natural reverberation of the live room without the (typically smaller) control room superimposing a "small room signature" on top of what the engineer is hearing through the monitors.

I take advantage of this characteristic of human hearing in some of my designs by bouncing reflections off the ceiling, thereby adding time delay to those reflections similar to the backwave of a dipole speakers pulled out into the room a good five feet or so.  You can hear the soundstage depth collapse when the additional up-firing reflections are turned off.

Duke

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