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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.
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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.
newbee
4,767 posts
 
Csontos, could you say the same thing about the difference between tubed and solid state stuff? Think, coupling digital and ss could be a perfect combination for 'definition', 'resolution', etc. Or not. :-)
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,807 posts
 
I suspect the reason that the Decca does so well in Csontos' system has something to do with the effective arm mass, the speed stability of the table, and the short cantilever used on the Decca.

If the 'table has a slight (inaudible) speed variation, the soundstage will be less distinct as the arm oscillates over the cartridge cantilever due to changing skating forces. A shorter or stiffer cantilever will be alleviate this.

Newbee, IMO/IME tubes and analog have the most detail, hence the best soundstage definition.
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