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Walk-in soundstage

Coupled with his Weiss DAC 204 and T+A DAC 200, Mr. Steve Huff claimed to have experienced the so-called "walk-in soundstage" when using the Lumin U2 as the streaming transporter. This refers to a deeply immersive, three-dimensional stereo image where the listener perceives the musical space as so realistic and spacious that it feels as if one could physically walk into the soundstage.

This level of presentation is notably different from the more common “layered” sound field that many average listeners or reviewers report—where the sound is merely projected in front of the listener with some layering or spatial envelopment.

I'm curious how many of you have also experienced this effect in your own systems and listening spaces. If you're open to sharing, I'd love to hear about the components and setup that helped you achieve it.

  

lanx0003
dynacohum
742 posts
 

Walk-in soundstage?  Easy…with nitrous oxide!

lanx0003 OP
1,204 posts
 

Two out of five are already cracking jokes—guess soundstage still feels like a mission impossible for some.  I get it though—chasing that truly immersive, three-dimensional stage can feel elusive. When it clicks, it’s pure magic… almost like acoustic N₂O.  And I do believe this can be achieved with miniMax gears.

gdaddy1
307 posts
 

Steve Huff also talks to dead people. Have you seen those videos? A Kook.

glennewdick's avatar
glennewdick
1,797 posts
 

I’ve only been able to hear a true walk around in the sound stage feel once with single driver speakers from Omega (SAM’s), probably the best sound stage I’ve ever heard. Granted they lacked in other areas. Second best was some Open baffles, but they need a specific room to optimise correctly. The smaller the speaker the better the sound staging IMO. Larger speakers tend to do that large sound stage that’s more of a wall of sound then a true walking in the sound stage type of thing.

To obtain that enveloping sound stage that puts you in the center of the event, right up there on stage with them, is hard to find with large multi driver speakers from my experience.

 

kofibaffour
465 posts
 

It's Steve Huff. He must embellish as always.

 

But you can have a system with pretty controlled dispersion patterns for both horizontal and vertical planes, they're pair matched as speakers within ±0.5dB, you have the room where masking is not an issue because of recurring reflections, echoes and ringing (basically you have a treated room using physics and listening and not just vibes) and the finally but the most important of them all, does the song in question have that psychoacoustic phenomenon baked in? Cos you're not getting a sprawling stage with a narrow mix or a mono mix no matter the amount of subjective blabber one can say

 

And I've achieved all in my space so I have a very unchanging presentation over a large space but not walk in stage. That's hyperbole unless you're running line arrays in your space akin to a music festival

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