2. amps-preamps
  3. 142953-91258

What preamp creates the largest soundstage?

I have always loved a large soundstage.  I have a small listening room (10x10) and have mini-monitors, driven by a tube amp.  I have played a lot with speaker placement, room acoustics, listening position to create a large soundstage.  I have rolled tubes on the amp and made dramatic improvements. (I have purposely left details on the brands of tubes, amp and speakers out, because I don’t want side comments to distract from my question)

i have a digital source into a solid state naim preamp.  I home demo’ed a well reviewed preamp, and was surprised at how much the soundstage shrunk, both side to side and top downward.  It was deeper, and did have much of the tube magic, but I could not live without the big soundstage.  

so my question is, does anyone have experience with a preamp that produces a big soundstage?  I am looking for recommendations on what to demo next. While I lean toward tubes, I am open to solid state.  I am okay either new or used, and could spend in the 5k range, but would be happy to spend less.  Also comments on specific brands (i.e. xyz is known to have great soundstage in all their preamps) as opposed to models, are welcome.

and I will be the first to admit that perhaps the very large soundstage is not “accurate”to real music, but boy is it seductive and I love it and can’t live without it.

meiatflask
heaudio123
689 posts
 
The first step to solving a problem, is admitting you have one ... and you already have done that below :-)


I am pretty confident in the position that electronics do not recreate a soundstage (that probably was not on the recording in the first place), at least intentionally. That comes from timing and levels in the music, and speaker and room interaction including reflections that create a false width to the sound field that while not accurate, is enjoyable to probably most people. No intentionally un-colored preamp should mess enough with phase (and step response) in the audio band to impact timing, nor frequency response, nor have much in the way of THD, IMD or noise.


So I guess the question is, is the new "flat" preamp, more colored, and hence interfering with the natural sound field you have come to enjoy, or is the one you have now more colored. Without figuring that out, I think it will be hard to know what is going to work better for you.

and I will be the first to admit that perhaps the very large soundstage is not “accurate”to real music, but boy is it seductive and I love it and can’t live without it.

geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
The one that’s isolated from the nefarious extremely low frequency vibrations coming up from the floor. 🔝 By the way, all the information you need to obtain a large expanding soundstage is right on the recording - all 3 physical dimensions of the recording space plus the time coordinates. ⏰ The trick is to extract that information from the recording completely and accurately. 🤗
jtgofish's avatar
jtgofish
517 posts
 
The biggest 3D soundstage comes from directly heated triode [DHT] preamps.Especially if you can use meshplate tubes .Coincident,Ming Da,Manley and Supratek make DHT preamps.I use a Supratek 300B preamp and it has a very big room filling soundstage.The Ming Da DHT preamps are surprisingly good.Not Supratek or Coincident standard but still very good.
sebs
4 posts
 
Guys are you saying best preamp is no preamp?
In my experience preamp make huge difference in how soundstage is build and if that is because as per mijostyn: "The job for electronics is to replicate whatever the source is and then perhaps modify it in a very specific way. Some tube electronics give you a sense of more depth which I think is why a lot of us like them but it is a distortion of the truth.". Bottom line is preamps are manipulating this holographic effect in one way on another. In regards to tube preamps I have not heard (DTM) mention by jtgofish but IMHO solid state preamps gave me more of that 3d effect then tube. Question is what preamp will produce vastest, deepest stage stage and 3d effect without over exaggeration. Obviously huge part in all our digressions is the room acoustics which nobody is talking about. Same system will sound completely different in every room. Not sure why many of us chasing for perfect sound swapping gear but not adapting rooms acoustically...   
heaudio123
689 posts
 
sebs,

See my post above about rooms and speaker room interaction. I think the "Not sure why many of us chasing for perfect sound swapping gear but not adapting rooms acoustically... ", comes from the "throw money at the problem" approach, because it is easy and you feel you have done something, even if you really have not. It is much easier (and often cheaper) than the much harder job of actually fixing the problem.


I gave a talk at a well attended audiophile club meeting. I asked how many people owned a measurement microphone and software, something that can be purchased for $100. Maybe 15% put up their hand, but you know the average system price in that room was well north of $10K, not to mention the value, even un-modified of the room it often dominates.
More to discover