Limited soundstage between speakers

Acoustic in the perspective of  the passive material treatment a problem about the optimizing BALANCE between reflection, absorbtion and diffusion ratio...

And yes we can use some amount of reflection at the right spot to create an ACCURATE and BETTER soundscape....

Characterizing all reflections to be a bad outcome in a room is meaningless...

Too much absorption is bad, too much diffusion is bad also...

In a small room using positively the lateral and back refrlections is the way to create "listener envelopment" factor....

It is not my opinion here, pure acoustic science....

If you want research articles proof ask me...

If you put enough reflective plates at different angles around the room, the sound will bounce all over the place.

This is an excerpt by Robert E. Greene from an essay he wrote for The Absolute Sound.

For decades, it has become a fashionable matter to worry about “soundstage,” but this has reached the point that recordings are expected to have a soundstage almost independently of what the recording is—to expect the soundstage to be a property of the playback system rather than reproducing what is recorded. To my mind, this is a matter of using reflections off the walls, especially the first reflections off the sidewalls, to generate an artificial sense of space. People may like this but it is not really reproducing the recording. And the impression is very unstable in detail because it is not really there on the recording. (Some recordings actually have outside-the- speaker images because of phase effects from spaced microphones, but most recordings do not have this in any systematic way). Because of the instability, the idea has arisen that all kinds of things that really have no reason to be part of the reproduction of space at all can be evaluated according to their effect on soundstage, with enlargement being always regarded as better.

If you're truly interested in stereo microphone recording techniques.

There is three acoustic events :

The original acoustic possible event of a listening spectator location choice...

The recorded event by trade-off choices of the recording engineer...

Your own room ability to deliver a soundscape...

There is no REPRODUCTION of a recording IN YOUR ROOM; the cd or the vinyl concrete matter are a reproduction of the acoustical cues choice of the recording engineer yes... ...

 but only EXIST for our EARS  an acoustic TRANSLATION from these 3 acoustic situations...

And in acoustic science using wisely lateral reflections but more so the back front reflections ratio in a small room, is the way to create an important acoustical experience in our room like in a theater: LISTENER ENVELOPMENT FACTOR...

This "listener envelopment factor" abbreviated by the acronym LEV in acoustic books is a HIGHLY desirable experience with any system/room...I put a link to a thesis in acoustic in my post above explaining that...

The LEV give me the intimate relation with the music like with an headphone but out of my head...Not a mere soundscape between the speakers hell no! thanks!

it seems my relative good sound TRANSLATION is not the "absolute" sound reproduction.of mr Greene..

i will repeat myself: there is no ideal reproduction of a lived event ONLY a translation by acoustic laws and acoustic choices....

People opposing that dont know acoustic and are gear fetichist...

Perhaps the gear engineer rightfully dream to reproduce the sound picked by the recording engineer thanks to them for their art, but the speakers/room relation TRANSLATE the recorded sound CUES with the help of the room sound cues...This new art is acoustic and psycho-acoustic...

😁😊

To my mind, this is a matter of using reflections off the walls, especially the first reflections off the sidewalls, to generate an artificial sense of space. People may like this but it is not really reproducing the recording.

@onhwy61 

Good quote. I respect Robert’s opinion a great deal.

You might want to use the following youtube clip for testing, which I believe is a good recording. Set up your speakers placement according to the actual stage and see if the SS within or beyond the speakers. Also close your eyes to feel the depth of the SS and how well each instrument is separated. In my living room where the side walls are not closed by, the SS created by my system is indeed wider than speakers and I could pinpoint the position of each performer. You need to move the speakers away from front wall to acquire the SS depth. You could also turn the speakers with slight toe-in angles to improve the images but not too much to affect the SS width.