From whence does Sound Stage come?

@mahgister I agree, acoustics are key.

@erik_squires From what I’ve learned recently, diffusion in a room can be isolated by correctly interpreting graphical representations of the frequency response as modern software can cast it. I think it’s the impulse decay that is analyzed, with time on the horizontal X-axis and amplitude on the vertical Y-axis. When a spike is recorded on the vertical axis, the elapsed time from the microphone is computed so that by knowing the speed sound travels, and the time taken to make the trip from speaker to reflection point to microphone, the distance can be calculated and compared to room layout. Break out your 8th grade compass and draw an arc to encounter reflective surfaces diffusing the sound. I’m sure I’ve got a few, and recent furniture introduction and rearrangement is sure to have affected the room’s response to the speakers. 
Thanks for the response. 

Soundstage is a very interesting subject, for sure. And one that can be elusive to achieve.

I’ve done some very simple experiments, the simplest of which is switching out one amp for another. Same speakers. Same location. Listening at the same volume (volume set using a dB meter app running a 1khz tone). Same piece of music.

Changing the amp, changes the soundstage. 
 

So many variables…

"Whence" is a great word; however, its original meaning is "from where", as in, "Whence comes soundstage?" Thus, saying "from whence" is redundant.

Sorry. I’ll see myself out now.

@simao You are correct, of course, and I debated with myself whether to include it or not; I decided to leave it in for readers unfamiliar with the usage of ‘whence’ (it’s not often used in English, but I think more commonly found in German and other languages). Thank you for noticing.

Edit: Given the circumstances which lead up to my post, I probably should have written: “Whither went my Sound Stage?” 
@rodman99999 Thank you again for chiming in. When you consider how much testing —and knowledge— is required to properly tune a system and treat a room, the LEDR method offers real promise. As you say, it uses our ears as the test equipment using the science written into the software. Brilliant! The basic fact of test equipment is that they don’t measure like humans hear, so interpreting the test data becomes a monumental task for the uninitiated. If you keep posting links to authorities on this subject, I’m going to have to extend my library shelf, I write in jest. Keep them coming, I’m ordering the Chesky CD tomorrow

@perkri My experience exactly, like, what happened?

@falconquest (and others): You are correct, absolutely, without a recording of the space, there is no sound stage to reproduce, which directly answers my question, “Whence cometh Sound Stage?” The issue for me is my ability to reproduce a reasonable reproduction of it in my space. It didn’t drop out all-of-sudden, but after several weeks of reconfiguring components in new spaces occasioned by a recent speaker purchase, I ‘woke up’ to the fact that my imaging was diminished and I wasn’t ‘feeling’ the sense of instruments in the room on a stage, as it were. It may be that I’m missing my Schiit Yggdrasil DAC in my upstairs system. I’ve got two DACs between the BlueRay player and the AVR but none of them can hold a candle to the Yggy; I tried a Modius, but it wasn’t much better than the DAC in the AVR, the BlueRay is pretty good, but not the equal of the Yggy, to my ears. Thanks for the response, you and everyone else who emphasized the importance of the recording itself, in whatever format, resolution, or media it was recorded on. With all the recent gear changes, I was beginning to lose sight of the forest for the trees, thank you for the corrective. It’s all about the music, right?