[Bob2]

This thread underscores the problem with discussing audio -- everyone has different ideas of what "disappearing" means.

 ^ +1!
The sound in my room goes left and right, wall to wall from my listening position. Listening to the drum solo in In agada da vida makes for a nice example. Other tunes can sound as if they are to my immediate left and/or right with surprising depth. In my experience speaker placement is what improved the sound stage. Some recordings can reduce the effect while others are more pronounced.

[tomlinmgt]

The disappearing act with room wide, deep behind the speakers soundstage should only happen with a live, minimally mic'ed recording made in a venue large enough to create late reflections that introduce a time delay. This creates the ambiance that lets us know the positioning of the singers and musicians as the microphones act in a similar manner as our ears.

Multi-track recordings can present images behind and outside of the physical location of the speakers. I believe it's done with adjustments to phase during the mixing/engineering process, but I'm not certain about that. Regardless, I hear/see it in my system all the time. I can provide a list of tracks where I as well as everyone who has listened to my system has experienced images that exist outside, behind and even ahead of (to the extreme sides) the physical location of the speakers. And you don't have to have open baffle speakers to experience it.

[tomlinmgt]

but at the end of the day, you desire to be wrapped in a cocoon of sonic bliss, and that ain't gonna occur if you're busy trying to locate instruments within the soundstage and other such audiophilic nonsense.

Speak for yourself. Floating/moving images in a tall, deep and wide sound stage is supper cool chit in my book and adds immensely to the hifi listening experience.  The stereo in my truck has fantastic tonality,.respectable dynamics and makes every recording sound good. But it's not nearly as engaging or entertaining to listen to because that holographic element of images populating the entire front third of my room isn't there. Sure, I can enjoy listening to music without all the imaging and vast sound stage, but I enjoy it more when it's there. Hell, you're in a discussion group sponsored by a business that deliberately produces and markets products that maximize that experience.  Lol

[Rusty Jefferson]

You quoted the second part of that post. Did you read the first part?

....No multi-track studio recording (that wasn't manipulated with phase trickery) should present outside of or behind the loudspeakers. It should be presented between the speakers in the traditional sense of a phantom center image. There is no fader on the mixing console for placing an instrument outside the speakers or behind them. The disappearing act with room ....

Speak for yourself. Floating/moving images in a tall, deep and wide sound stage is supper cool chit in my book and adds immensely to the hifi listening experience.  The stereo in my truck has fantastic tonality,.respectable dynamics and makes every recording sound good. But it's not nearly as engaging or entertaining to listen to because that holographic element of images populating the entire front third of my room isn't there. Sure, I can enjoy listening to music without all the imaging and vast sound stage, but I enjoy it more when it's there....

Agree 100%, as long as it's supposed to be there naturally, not created by the system. Multi-track studio recordings should not have huge, wide, deep sound stages. There's no time domain information on the recording.

[tomlinmgt]

I agree with this except maybe your exception.  My speakers routinely disappear with content that presents as a wall of sound but can also be spooky given the right recordings (eg Tool “Chocolate Chip Trip”).  Speaker placement isn’t going to magically create space in a recording but it can influence how effectively what’s in the recording is reproduced.

I often play Chocolate Chip Trip for visitors to showcase image resolution and sound stage dimensionality. Besides the bells, sound effects, cymbals and an entire drum set that is presented in the sound stage just as if you're standing in front of the drum set with all the individual drums and cymbals located accurately to match where they're actually positioned in the kit (I'm a drummer so I pay VERY close attention to this stuff) in real life and all of it in the six foot by nine foot area from the speakers to the front wall and in between the speakers, there is also this hand drum that sounds a little like a Huey helicopter playing almost continuously throughout the song that oscillates from one side of the sound stage to the next...moving from against one side wall about five or so feet ahead of one speaker, along that side wall and to the front wall, across the front wall crossing to the opposite side, traveling along the opposite side wall from which it originated toward and in front of the speaker about five or six feet, then reversing and traveling the same path it just took back to the other side to do it all over again, and again, and again.  The image of the drum can be followed like you're watching a moving object pass in front of you with no skips or breaks in its path and if you had a laser pointer or flashlight with a spot/focused beam, you could easily trace its journey right in front of you. It never once sounds like it's coming directly from either speaker...always to the sides and behind. However, there are some other sounds in the recording that do sound like they're coming from the physical location of the speaker...mostly synthesizer sound effects.

[tomlinmgt]

You quoted the second part of that post. Did you read the first part?Agree 100%, as long as it's supposed to be there naturally, not created by the system. Multi-track studio recordings should not have huge, wide, deep sound stages. There's no time domain information on the recording.

Yet some do. Background singers in some recordings sound like they're behind the lead vocal. Some instruments (often percussion) sound deeper in the sound stage than other instruments. The drum set can sound like it's set further back in the sound stage than other instruments. All of this happening in mult-track recordings because the engineer artificially created that sense of depth in the recording.

[Rusty Jefferson]

Yet some do. Background singers in some recordings sound like they're behind the lead vocal. Some instruments (often percussion) sound deeper in the sound stage than other instruments. The drum set can sound like it's set further back in the sound stage than other instruments. All of this happening in mult-track recordings because the engineer artificially created that sense of depth in the recording.

Correct, and agreed.   But they aren't outside the speaker boundaries or behind the speakers like a live acoustic recording unless they've been manipulated. That's all I'm saying.

[tomlinmgt]

Correct, and agreed.   But they aren't outside the speaker boundaries or behind the speakers like a live acoustic recording unless they've been manipulated. That's all I'm saying.

Yes, we're on the same page then. All of that dimensionality you hear and see in a multitrack recording is artificially created through panning and phase/level adjustments and all those sorts of mixing tricks. And then you get into the wacky stuff like q sound...it's all fun and fascinating to me and really showcases a magical side to high fidelity 2-channel music reproduction  And since the room acoustics, speaker setup, electronics and speaker quality all have to line up and be dialed in to release those spatial cues embedded in the recording (be they artificial or otherwise) fleshed out in ways that can boggle the mind, it's just that much more fulfilling and cool when you hear it all come together and do things most people will never hear a stereo system do in an entire lifetime.

[Early B.]

Speak for yourself. Floating/moving images in a tall, deep and wide sound stage is supper cool chit in my book and adds immensely to the hifi listening experience.  The stereo in my truck has fantastic tonality,.respectable dynamics and makes every recording sound good. But it's not nearly as engaging or entertaining to listen to because that holographic element of images populating the entire front third of my room isn't there. Sure, I can enjoy listening to music without all the imaging and vast sound stage, but I enjoy it more when it's there. Hell, you're in a discussion group sponsored by a business that deliberately produces and markets products that maximize that experience.  Lol

You missed my point, but Rusty got it right. Much of the so-called audiophile stuff we like to hear might be interesting and it's great for marketing purposes, but some of it isn't natural. Who gives a fluk if you can locate every instrument within the soundstage? When you go to a live concert, do you close your eyes so you can hear if the piano is the left side or the right? 

[tomlinmgt]

You missed my point, but Rusty got it right. Much of the so-called audiophile stuff we like to hear might be interesting and it's great for marketing purposes, but some of it isn't natural. Who gives a fluk if you can locate every instrument within the soundstage? When you go to a live concert, do you close your eyes so you can hear if the piano is the left side or the right?

Well evidently you're missing my point, too. No, I don't go to live performances and close my eyes and try to point out where every instrument is. But I do appreciate the mechanics of high fidelity recording/reproduction and I'm aware of the fact that recording engineers put spatial cues in the recordings for a reason...some might call it artistic expression. But they are painting a sonic picture for us to enjoy and I like having a system that allows me to see it as well as hear it, which in turn allows me to enjoy the music that much more. You don't give a fluck about it, fine by me. I do. I dig it and think it's cool...and it's important to me to hear the music not only the way the musicians intended, but the way the recording engineer intended, as well. There's some pretty remarkable stuff buried in those recordings If you can unleash it.

Take that track I mentioned a few posts back as an example....the hand drum moving across the soundstage, specifically. Nobody's ever going to hear that on their cell phone speaker, and through earbuds you're just going to hear it pan from left to right and back to left and back to right again and...I bet most hifi setups can't reproduce it at maximum resolution. The recording engineer knew this and so did the musicians. Yet still they put it there... deliberately... It's part of the art. You can be flippant about it and dismiss it as marketing or whatever you called it, but it's definitely more than that.

[Early B.]

Well evidently you're missing my point, too. No, I don't go to live performances and close my eyes and try to point out where every instrument is. But I do appreciate the mechanics of high fidelity recording/reproduction and I'm aware of the fact that recording engineers put spatial cues in the recordings for a reason...some might call it artistic expression. But they are painting a sonic picture for us to enjoy and I like having a system that allows me to see it as well as hear it, which in turn allows me to enjoy the music that much more. You don't give a fluck about it, fine by me. I do. I dig it and think it's cool...and it's important to me to hear the music not only the way the musicians intended, but the way the recording engineer intended, as well. There's some pretty remarkable stuff buried in those recordings If you can unleash it.

Take that track I mentioned a few posts back as an example....the hand drum moving across the soundstage, specifically. Nobody's ever going to hear that on their cell phone speaker, and through earbuds you're just going to hear it pan from left to right. I bet most hifi setups can't reproduce it at maximum resolution. The recording engineer knew this and so did the musicians. Yet still they put it there... deliberately... It's part of the art. You can be flippant about it and dismiss it as marketing or whatever you called it, but it's definitely more than that.

I get it -- you're a passionate audiophile like the rest of us. You enjoy hearing stuff in your music that most non-audiophiles don't hear. That's cool. Just sayin' -- there's a huge difference between what real music sounds like versus what audiophiles like to hear. Think about it this way -- non-audiophiles enjoy music as much as audiophiles, so when we become obsessed with chasing windmills, we sometimes forget what's important.     

[tomlinmgt]

I get it -- you're a passionate audiophile like the rest of us. You enjoy hearing stuff in your music that most non-audiophiles don't hear. That's cool. Just sayin' -- there's a huge difference between what real music sounds like versus what audiophiles like to hear. Think about it this way -- non-audiophiles enjoy music as much as audiophiles, so when we become obsessed with chasing windmills, we sometimes forget what's important.     

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure your implication here is that what's important is being able to simply enjoy the music and not lose sight of that in the course of chasing audiophile pursuits that sometimes do exactly that...make us forget how to simply enjoy the music. But I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. It requires balance, but one can very much simply enjoy the music while simultaneously pursuing AND ENJOYING those audiophile pursuits that SOME in the honby undoubtedly take a little too far.

And as far as understanding what real music sounds like...fact is, I was making music LONG before I ever got into hifi. I've been a drummer for over four decades and a working musician (not pro) most of my adult life. I've spent more time around real instruments than I'll probably ever spend in front of hifi gear and know the sonic characteristics of the real stuff as well as anybody. Well, except for something like chamber music instruments...but I don't listen to chamber music so, yeah.

Believe me, I kinda chuckle when I read people say they want their hifi to sound like "the players are actually in the room". Live instruments can be brash and harsh in person...especially drums and percussion.  Trust me fellas...you don't want that racket in your room for a solid hour. Lol

[Early B.]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure your implication here is that what's important is being able to simply enjoy the music and not lose sight of that in the course of chasing audiophile pursuits that sometimes do exactly that...make us forget how to simply enjoy the music. But I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. It requires balance, but one can very much simply enjoy the music while simultaneously pursuing AND ENJOYING those audiophile pursuits that SOME in the honby undoubtedly take a little too far.

And as far as understanding what real music sounds like...fact is, I was making music LONG before I ever got into hifi. I've been a drummer for over four decades and a working musician (not pro) most of my adult life. I've spent more time around real instruments than I'll probably ever spend in front of hifi gear and know the sonic characteristics of the real stuff as well as anybody. Well, except for something like chamber music instruments...but I don't listen to chamber music so, yeah.

Believe me, I kinda chuckle when I read people say they want their hifi to sound like "the players are actually in the room". Live instruments can be brash and harsh in person...especially drums and percussion.  Trust me fellas...you don't want that racket in your room for a solid hour. Lol

Allow me to make my implications clear -- your setup is probably better than 99% of people on this forum, and you're seeking advice from us on how to get your speakers to disappear more than they already are!?!   Since you have what many of us would consider an ideal setup, at what point is "good enough" enough? 

[VinceT]

Correct, and agreed.   But they aren't outside the speaker boundaries or behind the speakers like a live acoustic recording unless they've been manipulated. That's all I'm saying.

With some recordings, I have had sounds from outside the speaker boundaries. LS9s tweeters on the outside. I tried Klaus's set up getting speakers just slightly wider than equalateral and slight toe in. I dont have megabuck gear eithier. I'm sure others as well have...well just about every audio reviewer at least...lol

[Letitroll98]

Let's try some apples to apples here with a recording many of us may have.  Stereotype Test CD 3 has seven tracks of selected music designed to show off your system.  Track 5 is a Chesky recording of Sara K which is a very minimally mic'd and you can easily hear the drumkit far, far behind and outside the singer, the backing instruments which are in a wide spread behind the center image outside the speaker boundaries, with Sara clearly single close mic'd.   Track eight is a lovely recording of the Gods of Jazz that's multi mic'd with an extremely unnaturally close mic'd drum kit that sounds skyscraper high and wide.  I love the music, and it works great as a demonstration track, but natural soundstage it's not.  Track 10 is a demonstration track of single mic techniques where the clapping extends far behind and beyond the side boundaries of the speakers, which should put to rest any thoughts that stereo images can't extend beyond the speaker boundaries.  And what's most valuable to the discussion are the detailed recording notes that take out the ambiguity and guesswork we've been hampered with here.  As a side note this is my favorite and most used of the first three Stereophile Test CDs that I own

[tomlinmgt]

Allow me to make my implications clear -- your setup is probably better than 99% of people on this forum, and you're seeking advice from us on how to get your speakers to disappear more than they already are!?!   Since you have what many of us would consider an ideal setup, at what point is "good enough" enough?

I'm not seeking advice, necessarily...just asking if it's possible to have (or if anyone has experienced) speakers that totally disappear. I certainly don't claim to have a perfect room or system...and yeah, what I do have may be atypical compared to most in the hobby but there are still realms of fidelity I haven't yet reached or heard. And although I have a good bit of experience messing with this hifi stuff, I'm still learning and have a lot to learn yet. It's like a hike up a mountain trail...the entire journey is full of breathtaking views and moments where you just want to stop and take it all in, combined with figuring out better, more strategic ways to navigate the trail as you get further into the hike. The entire experience is fulfilling and enjoyable, but there are challenges and maybe some set backs that equip you with new found wisdom as you press on.

I don't spend a lot of time on the GR Research discussion forum, but I watch a lot of Danny's (and NRD Ron's) videos and the spirit in all of them is to get better sound and improve the hifi experience. That's all I'm doing here. I figured this is as good a place as any to ask the question since imaging and sound stage are two components of fidelity that Danny (and Ron) put emphasis on...and even moreso than most of the YouTube hifi channels.  People push back against Danny about some of his products and services, often claiming no measurements are there to support claims of improved fidelity, and Danny often responds by saying improvements to things like image resolution and sound stage dimensionality won't show up in any objective data...and I believe that because I've experienced it. So there ya go...just figured Danny's discussion forum is as safe a place as any to talk about this stuff, and with a group where I feel there's a good chance I'll find folks who have heard/experienced things I haven't.

Lastly, I ask questions like this to create discussions so that maybe some information may come out of it that's helpful for others. That's a big part of how I progressed in my journey and I like giving back and helping others progress their  journey whenever and however I can.

[tomlinmgt]

Let's try some apples to apples here with a recording many of us may have.  Stereotype Test CD 3 has seven tracks of selected music designed to show off your system.  Track 5 is a Chesky recording of Sara K which is a very minimally mic'd and you can easily hear the drumkit far, far behind and outside the singer, the backing instruments which are in a wide spread behind the center image outside the speaker boundaries, with Sara clearly single close mic'd.   Track eight is a lovely recording of the Gods of Jazz that's multi mic'd with an extremely unnaturally close mic'd drum kit that sounds skyscraper high and wide.  I love the music, and it works great as a demonstration track, but natural soundstage it's not.  Track 10 is a demonstration track of single mic techniques where the clapping extends far behind and beyond the side boundaries of the speakers, which should put to rest any thoughts that stereo images can't extend beyond the speaker boundaries.  And what's most valuable to the discussion are the detailed recording notes that take out the ambiguity and guesswork we've been hampered with here.  As a side note this is my favorite and most used of the first three Stereophile Test CDs that I own

Thanks and I'd love to participate with you here, but the only hifi test cd I have is The Chesky Records Guide to Critical Listening/The Ultimate Demonstration Disk.  Maybe I can look up the track listing for the Stereophile Test CD #3 and find those tracks on Qobuz.  I stream mostly (Eversolo A6/Denafrips Pontus II), so just name an artist and title and I can probably find it.

[Rusty Jefferson]

....Track 10 is a demonstration track of single mic techniques where the clapping extends far behind and beyond the side boundaries of the speakers, which should put to rest any thoughts that stereo images can't extend beyond the speaker boundaries.....

Okay, I feel like folks are skimming the posts and not actually reading them. Those examples of instruments beyond the speaker boundaries were recorded in a live acoustic environment with time domain information captured. That can and should be free of the speaker boundaries though many have not experienced it. In fact, it's the whole point of the mapping the soundstage tracks Stereophile makes. If the pot bagging or clapping aren't free of the boundaries, you have a problem, or your system doesn't have the dispersion characteristics that will allow it to happen.

Here's a better example. Even if you don't have any Joni Mitchell records, you can find her recordings on the services. Select the Hejira record and play the first track, Coyote. The image should be located between the width of the speakers. There shouldn't be any music coming from or "stuck on the speakers". The instruments should be individually locateable within the image and there may be depth of image depending on your system. There shouldn't be any instruments located outside or behind the speaker boundaries. This is a "typical" multi-track studio recording assembled by an engineer and how that type of recording should be presented. Now, listen to Blue Hotel Room. Where is the guitar located? That's right, far beyond the speaker boundaries because the engineer altered the phase making it possible, depending on your system, for the sound to appear to be coming from outside the speakers.

So, either through time domain information captured by the microphones in a reverberant space, or through engineering "trickery" are the only times the imaging/soundstage should be wider than your speakers....

[Zuman]

As many have said, it's the combination of speakers, room, electronics, and recording that makes the difference.
Room is the absolutely dominant factor. Next, I find speakers with a narrow baffle and well-designed crossover to be reliably good imagers (which is the real definition of "disappearing speakers"),
Here's a step I use in setting the final placement of my speakers:
Get a copy of Grand Funk Railroad's "Closer to Home" and play "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)."
If your speakers are set up close to optimal imaging, you will hear the music clearly pass behind your head a couple of times during the song.
Once you have that working, you can make final minor adjustments to speaker positioning. But I've found that until I get that behind-the-head effect working, I'm not close enough to adjust for optimal sound stage and tonality.

[Early B.]

Okay, I feel like folks are skimming the posts and not actually reading them. Those examples of instruments beyond the speaker boundaries were recorded in a live acoustic environment with time domain information captured. That can and should be free of the speaker boundaries though many have not experienced it. In fact, it's the whole point of the mapping the soundstage tracks Stereophile makes. If the pot bagging or clapping aren't free of the boundaries, you have a problem, or your system doesn't have the dispersion characteristics that will allow it to happen.

Here's a better example. Even if you don't have any Joni Mitchell records, you can find her recordings on the services. Select the Hejira record and play the first track, Coyote. The image should be located between the width of the speakers. There shouldn't be any music coming from or "stuck on the speakers". The instruments should be individually locateable within the image and there may be depth of image depending on your system. There shouldn't be any instruments located outside or behind the speaker boundaries. This is a "typical" multi-track studio recording assembled by an engineer and how that type of recording should be presented. Now, listen to Blue Hotel Room. Where is the guitar located? That's right, far beyond the speaker boundaries because the engineer altered the phase making it possible, depending on your system, for the sound to appear to be coming from outside the speakers.

So, either through time domain information captured by the microphones in a reverberant space, or through engineering "trickery" are the only times the imaging/soundstage should be wider than your speakers....

Well said.