Is soundstage just a distortion?

05-03-13: Geoffkait
It's a little ironic that there are such things as records and CDs that test for soundstage since the soundstage you get is going to be limited by the, uh, limitations of the system you play them on. Kinda like seeing an ad for HDTV on your old fashioned 90s Panasonic. The HDTV picture quality in the ad is going to be limited by the constraints of the Panasonic.

I don't see any irony there, Geoff.

The basic purpose of a test record or CD is to facilitate assessment and identification of the "limitations of the system you play them on."

It seems fundamental that when you want to test something, the performance of the test equipment (in this case the record or CD), in terms of accuracy, quality, etc., should be much better than the corresponding characteristics of what you are trying to test.

Regards,
-- Al

Looking forward to receiving mine:) And the others too!

Thanks, Rodman.

BTW, I was going to word it a little differently, Al;) You certainly didn't take the words out of my mouth.

Al's comments are on point. Goeff's reference to the Opus 3 recordings, especially 'Depth of Image' makes me wonder though what would have happened if I had never heard that record over a system which had its soundstage capabilities optimized. I used this disc for years as a goal/reference when trying to establish my own system. But, if you had never heard its capabilities in the first place it wouldn't mean so much - it still sounds great and you might not know what opportunities for improvement exist.

Hi all.

Just read this entire thread. I have to say that Mezmo's post had many good points and was well articulated - very good post Mezmo! Actually, I found many good posts in this thread. It's been a good read and very interesting.

However, when Mezmo stated: "They bounce off of stuff, stuff can get in the way, the room can resonate at weird frequencies, they can bounce into each other and either cancel each other out or get excited in strange and inappropriate ways, in short, they can get into all manner of trouble." I know he was referring to sound waves, but it sure did remind me of my buddies and I attending our first junior high school mixer.

Sorry to interrupt. Intermission is now over.

Please carry on,

Tim

Soundstage is a form of trickery,but can be fun when you hear it after changing a component.

Was it always there?
Or is it some sort of benevolent distortion that the new component has?

Perhaps the new component is more revealing of what had always been there in the recording?

Is the recording an accurate reproduction of a real musical event or is the soundstage just studio trickery?

Perhaps we need a list of recordings that are known to throw a huge soundtage in either or both formats.

But if a speaker didn't throw a huge soundstage,is that a deal breaker?
Maybe it does other things better,maybe it's more truthful to the tone of the instruments, or has more depth, detail or speed.

I suppose I should admit that I don't fuss about soundstage as much as I used to and that I don't miss it.

I do fuss about other things.

If I can't differentiate a string bass from a Fender,I wouldn't care about good or bad soundstage.

I remember some of my systems had better soundstaging than what I have now, but those systems were mostly of the 2 driver stand mount variety.

To go back to those systems just for improved soundstaging would be too much of a sacrifice in other aspects of sound reproduction for my tatse.