Is soundstage just a distortion?

Zavato, there are actually 2 "soundstages" involved, 1) the soundstage of the recording and 2) the other one that is independently projected by your system. If the system's soundstage is less than optimal, then the presentation of the recording soundstage is in some way limited or curtailed accordingly. Typically and, in particular, it's curtailed in terms of things like its overall size shape and dimensionality, depth-vs-width ratio, its ability to disappear from the speakers, forward envelopement, coherence, air, distances between performers and so on. All these things can be impacted by speaker positioning, xover quality, the relative quality of component power supplies, amp/preamp design, wiring and much more. Ideally, the point of a hifi is to "allow" (and I'm stressing that concept as much as possible) the soundstage that the recording engineers labored to create to come through to the listening room (via your system) as unaltered or as unimpeded as is practicable. In other words, hopefully and as much as possible, the recorded soundstage should 'fit cleanly within' the system's soundstage without the system acting to impose its own soundstage limitations onto that of the recording. For most of us, all that can be easier said than done, at least to start with...and I haven't even yet mentioned the complication presented by the acoustics of the room itself. I can tell you from direct experience though, that once all that's done, the recorded soundstage is very typically much larger than the zone between the speakers. In my setup there is very often as much information from about 4-5 feet outside edges of the speaker cabinets as there is between them. This is not "added" by sound engineers. Many folks do not realize how much their own system may be actively convoluting, or distorting, the soundtage of their recordings and, as a result, may from time to time infrequently experience 'random' or 'unexpected' musical sounds from outside the edges of their speakers, but without it appearing to be commonplace or otherwise natural sounding and believably a part of the presentation. The typical conclusion is that some recordings are in some way 'manipulated' to achieve this effect, but it plainly isn't so. Nor is it necessary. Good systems can allow either the entire, or the majority of, the recording's soundstage to come through well enough for everything to be properly coherent. I have a roughly $5k CD-only rig, but have coupled it to almost $6k of power conditioning. I'll be the first to tell you that's just a wee bit unorthodox, but in my case it has worked wonders without drawback, but on that, of course, YMMV. My components, while not state-of-art highend, are, like yours, not "poorly designed" either. But, the kind of conditioning I found not only kills electrical noise (the real enemy), but also makes bad power supplies sound acceptable, and acceptable ones sound good, good ones sound excellent and excellent ones sound off the hook. In the end, soundstage may be, at least somewhat of a degree of distortion - one that may be necessary to complete the audio illusion (at the very least, no 2 systems have the same inherent soundstage fingerprint), but, to that degree, I welcome it. But, I'm saying really the biggest challenge is undertaking the pursuit of not 'cramping its style' as much as possible. Regards. John

In my system, with later generation pseudo-omni OHM Walsh speakers running, digital/analog source does not matter for soundstage. Its purely a function of the recording.

Most decent to good or better quality recordings have wall to wall soundstage, often many feet out beyond speakers.

The sound emitted from the speakers fills the area immediately in front of and well behind the speakers. Actual location of speakers cannot be determined with eyes closed. Its more like the performers are on stage in front of you. Mono recordings even take on a presentation much like if the actual performers were sitting front and square in front of you but with a naturalness to the acoustics that makes it sound more like a live performance than a recording.

The OHMs are exceptional in this area, when set up well. WIth right amp, dynamics are top notch as well to boot, no fuzziness or other effects often associated with large soundstage due to phase artifacts occur.

Other good omnidirectional speakers I have heard, like mbl, also tend to do exceptionally well in the soundstage area, however the presentation is so different from what might be used to otherwise with more conventional dynamic speaker designs that some will take to it and never look back while others may never take the plunge.

I'm not sure you can call the Decca a cantilevered cartridge. They do make short cantilevered conventionally designed cartridges but I was referring to the original Decca Blue, Red, or Gold type. In the original versions, a line contact stylus is mounted in the end of a verticle post which is quite long and then bent to horizontally engage the coils. Said post is then damped/secured by a 'rope' which is tied around it near the stylus and attached under tension at the rear. There is no suspension. I think it's the positive downward impact of the stylus and subsequent resonance of the rope that yields this result.

We already have hybrid components but referring to analog/digital, I wonder what cartridge manufacturers would have come up with by now had digital remained a phenomenon or an anomaly.

Ralph, you made a very good point about tone-arm oscillation. All my records have a pencil line on the label of each side which serves as an alignment tool to precisely center the record before play. I've been doing this since my first system. The salesman who sold it to me threw in a Sure test record with a pencil line drawn out perpendicular to the spindle. It took a little while but it did dawn on me. Otherwise, only half the record is being accurately tracked. I know you were referring to something else but I think this is much more relevant.

"On the reproduction side it is not clear to me that audiophiles are interested in an accurate soundstage reproduction. Wider or deeper seems to be desired whether or not it is warranted. Dipoles, wide dispersion or rear firing tweeters and omnis all overlay additional soundstage info to what is already in the recording."

I never thought of it quite that way, but it's true - I absolutely prefer a wide soundstage as I find it easier to track individual players and singers that way than with a more condensed image. So in this instance I have to concede preference trumps original artistic intent.

Excellent observation!