Speaker positioning and center image depth

If you have not got it look for the Roger waters  cd amused  to death first song if I remember  correctly  called too much rope. It was recorded  in Q sound a room done right you are in for a sound stage treat. In my old house with my active  bi amped Maggie's and the help of an old friend  with a pitch  perfect  ear the sound stage depended on the recording  but with the right recording  the stage was wider than the side walls  and as deep as across the street and so good that you could hear or feel if the performer was moving there head while singing. This was on a normal recording  not the Q sound I talked about above. It is interesting  how much is available  in sound quality  when you think in the terms of my speaker is a 32 second of an inch out. That brings resolution  out and focus out as well. It is much easier to hear with the nore resolution  your system  has and the little changes done correctly  are stunning. I personally  like diffusion  better than absorption I like the alive sound. That being said absorption or at least some is very important.  In my new room I have a decent  basic setup but I know it needs the two years of tuning  a tiny bit here and a ting bit there. Each little change a person needs to listen  to for a few days. One thing that I have found works well on the wall behind the speakers  I'd a sheer curtain it should be close to floor to ceiling  the amount of fold in the curtain  and where they are changes the stage. More treatments  are need o n that wall but your system  will not sound as muddy after a person  does that. Funny how a person  doesn't  think it sounds muddy until you take some of it away. I actually  love the free improvements  to one's system  it just takes time and listening  to accomplish.  There's a bee gees live cd with sound number seven that they dedicate  the song to Andy the crowd is stunning on that diec. And that sound in particular.  A livingstone  Taylor discovered where he whistles that is also a stunning disc and the sense that he is right in front of you and you can go up and shake his hand is wonderful. I believe  that is a chesky  recording.  A friend  pf mine I had over and he listened  to my main system  and he brought over a disc for the Mormon  tabernacle  choir recorded in the temple  at Salt Lake that is an absolutely  huge sound stage and I am not perfectly  setup yet. Quite interesting  I went to another  Mormon  friends son's funeral  that was sad young fellow with three little kids anyhow first time I had been in a Mormon  stake it was very interesting  to look at the inside  from an audio file  stand point the walls were all treated with mainly diffusion  when I talked to my friends  afterwards the mother  told me that everytime  they build a new church there is an acoustic  engineer  involved.  If you ever get a chance worth your while to look at what they have done acousticly. Interesting  I went to support  my friends and help them grieve  and by keeping  my eyes open I was able to use some of what I saw for my hobby. You fellows  who live in cities  with world class performance  venues  have a great resource both in hearing  the music  live and looking at how they are accomplishing there sound quality. A very nice bonus  of living  in a big city. 

Regards 

@retiredfarmer Lots of great thoughts here, thanks for sharing. I love the Roger Waters Amused to Death album - I was only introduced to it in the last two years. Done properly, the first track "The Ballad of Bill Hubbard" has a full 180-degree wide soundstage. It's very trippy.

"Funny how a person  doesn't think it sounds muddy until you take some of it away." - Love this, as it all comes down to one's perceptual baseline and what they believe is truth. Making these types of improvements reveal new truths, which are often obscured even when you see music live. I think many audiophiles will agree that their systems often if not always sound better than live shows!

@hifibliss that's correct I have the wrong song name. It's been awhile the horse goes around the room and comes  through the center of the sound stage from across  the street. Lol I had an audio file  boxer bull dog cross. Lol he would sit deD center  and setup and listen.  Lol when I played this dice he would bark at the horses as they went around the room. That was a great dog. He would tap his foot in time with the music it was highly  entertaining  and very fun  to watch.  Lol I had a cat that loved Ann  Murray the cat at the farm and an old basic setup would get up when the Ann Murray  cd was over and push the play button so the cat could hear it  again  both of thos animals  I found strange  but entertaining.  

I obsessed for years over speaker placement, room interactions, treatments, this with both open baffle and box/ported speakers. And yes, this obsession paid off handsomely.

And then a few years ago, some Klipschorns fell into my hands, expecting the worst, corner placement required, huge wide baffles. And what do you know, wonderful sound staging and imaging right off the bat, nearly as good as my extremely carefully placed Merlin VSM-MM, a sound stage, imaging champ.  Guess this points out meticulous attention required for some speakers, much less so for others.

@wolf_garcia Best post. People make things so needlessly complicated.