2. amps-preamps
  3. 1367163375

Is soundstage just a distortion?

Years back when I bought a Shure V15 Type 3 and then later when I bought a V15 Type 5 Shure would send you their test records (still have mine). I also found the easiest test to be the channel phasing test. In phase yielded a solid center image but one channel out of phase yielded a mess, but usually decidedly way off center image.

This got me thinking of the difference between analog and digital. At its best (in my home) I am able to get a wider soundstage out of analog as compared to digital. Which got me thinking- is a wide soundstage, one that extends beyond speakers, just an artifact of phase distortion (and phase distortion is something that phono cartridges can be prone to)? If this is the case, well, it can be a pleasing distortion.
128x128zavato
abucktwoeighty's avatar
abucktwoeighty
1,079 posts
 
Google "Q Sound". Their website has a list of all of their q sound recordings.
csontos
1,311 posts
 
My London Decca cartridge on OTOH does staging I would describe as 'other worldly' in comparison to any other cartridge or digital I've ever heard. I used to think it was artificial but I can't see a cartridge having the ability to rearrange the sound stage. The only conclusion I can come to is that analog does in fact provide a much more defined and accurate as engineered sound stage. This has been my overall experience.
learsfool
1,215 posts
 
I agree with Csontos - analog recording recreates soundstaging quite a bit better than digital recording does. This is one of the main reasons why so many professional musicians still prefer it, and wish that it was still done. As much as digital recording has improved, it is still in the end a mix of way too many different mikes, and the end result, even though it can be altered and controlled and edited so much more easily, is not as natural sounding.
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,218 posts
 
If one cartridge can produce an other worldly soundstage compared to another, then obviuosly a cartridge can rearrange the soundstage. It is also not clear what conclusions can be drawn about analog versus digital.

What exactly do people mean when they say a better soundstage?
csontos
1,311 posts
 
For me 'better' is simply more defined. The Decca cartridges have the ability to produce very sharply defined point source imaging. Should this be considered artificial because it does not follow general design convention? 30 years ago I bought an Audio Quest cartridge for $75.00 that had no mags or coils but only a tiny circuit board to which the cantilever was attached. This thing was rejected by the audio community as an inferior design. Funny thing is it performed similar to the Decca and one of the best I've ever heard. Ime, cartridges in general produce a relatively vague sound stage. The very reason why their are so many different camps trying to capture a semblance of reality in their systems. Before digital hit the scene, there was not the sharp division between the tube guys and the rest. Interesting.
More to discover