[raov1]

Hi All,
   Its one of my first posts, although I've been reading the post for a few weeks.
   I know there are a few speaker threads active right now.
   None of them do convey what I'm looking for.
   I'm interested in speakers that acurately represent music in a perfect soundstage of the orginal recording.
   I'm not talking about filling the room with music, or just deep music or diffuse sound stage, but actually placing the singer, instruments and the events as is, in the listening room
   I've heard the B&W 602s, 805s and the onkyo systems ..... ( hey I'm new to the feild   ) Hey do fill the room well, the 805s do create deep soundstage, but not quite the soundstage I'm looking for
   Is 3D effect possible from 2 speakers or is it just a myth
   Thanks

[ajzepp]

You might want to give a listen to some Magnepans.

[Mike D]

If the B&Ws didn't do it for you, you should really check out some magnepans.  Make sure whoever demos them for you pulls them away from the wall and sets up a speaker/listenner arrangement similar to how you would set them up at home.  Also you may even ask the salesperson about the amplification.  Magnepans can sound very different on mid level solid state gear vs. high end vs. tube amplification.

You asked if a 3D soundstage is a myth.  Here's a bit of info that was passed on to me in a trumpet master class at U of I from the School of Music's head recording engineer:

From 2 channels you can create 7 by setting up your system based on an isosceles triangle.  The images that appear are left side, left speaker, left center, center, right center, right speaker, and right side.

The length between your ears and the plane between the two tweeters is X.  The width between the two tweeters is .66X.  So if you have 9 feet between you and the front plane between the speakers, the speakers should be 6 feet apart and slightly angled in to focus the 7 channels.  You angle each speaker towards you an inch at a time.  Be sure to keep the tweeter at the same center point on the floor to maintain the integrity of the iscoseles.  Each time you angle the speakers in the center channel with seem to focus.  Once the center channel gets too small or the side channels dissappear, you've gone too far.  

This can be great fun.  

It has been my experience that the 7 channels seemlessly connect when you get the math correct in your room.  There are several more specific ways to set up your speakers based on mathematical equations.  Other members here can tell you where to learn more.  I have always used the Hales Design Group method presented in the manual to the Revelation Three Speakers.  Other methods that comes to mind are the W.A.S.P method and the Cardas method.  Do a search and you should find them.

If you are a perfectionist, speaker placement and adjustment through the use of a tape measure and a calculator can be very rewarding and even fun.  

[aggielaw]

Ribbons and electrostatic speakers will convey the sound you're looking for - if you have nothing between you and the speakers.  I found in listening tests that a coffee table or the arm of a sectional sofa, for example, impact the illusion much more than on traditional "driver-based" speakers.  Of course, I've never heard a conventional speaker that cast the soundstate ribbons or electrostats can.

Maggies or Martin Logans would both be good choices for you, I think.  IF you're budget conscious, you might try Final Sound as well.

[maxwalrath]

If you are not at all budget conscious, the Spectral/MIT/Avalon 2C3D system from about 8 years ago threw the best soundstage I've heard.

[konut]

Although I haven't heard it myself, there have been several public demos of the Perpetual Technologies P-1A and P-3A using SOCS programing for specific models of Rocket loudspeakers. http://www.av123.com/products_category_brand.php?section=processors&brand=2  AV123 has a circle here, but you're probably better off searching the AV123 forums for more thorough information. The software corrects for phase and frequency and reports are that the presentation is excellent to spooky good.

[Tweaker]

The problem with dipoles like the Maggies is that they often exaggerate the scale of instruments. Listen to an acoustic guitar for example. Not too many guitars I know of that are ten feet long.
My RM2s do a fantastic job as well, although how does one ever know if any speaker is  reproducing perfectly the soundstage of any recording? Maybe we need to lobby to get studios to include  a diagram of the precise placement of musicians in whatever space they were recorded in!
   Imaging to me is pretty cool and helps a bit with the sense of realism, but I think it may be overemphasized. At least to the point of worrying if the violin behind the right speaker shouldn't be a tad farther to the left and a foot farther back. (Based, of course on the diagram supplied included with the cd). Go to a live concert and close your eyes and try to pick out the precise placement of individual musicians. Pretty tough to do. In real life it is not usually possible even in the most acoustically perfect venues unless it's an intimitate little club and you're sitting close to the stage and they are playing acoustic instruments. I've never had a concert experience ruined as a result, though.
 I feel it to be way more important to have speakers that are true to the sound (every aspect including tone, dynamics, etc.) of instruments and voices as much as possible.   If they happen to image great as well that's a bonus and patience in setup will usually get you there with most speakers - some better than others of course.
 But since you want an imaging champ , the best  I have ever heard, in that regard, is the Devore Fidelity Gibbon 8. Very precise, deep, wide and tall soundstage.

[randytsuch]

Maybe I am in the minority here, but I think it takes more than speakers to get what you are looking for.  Source, preamp and amp play a part, everything in the path plays a part.  
I get a pretty good soundstage with my speakers, but I think I can get the same with other speakers too.

BTW, also read a post recently that made sense, you are actually not hearing the soundstage of the studio, you are hearing the soundstage the recording engineering creates when he mixes things.  Unless, it is a simple two mike recording with no real mixing, but that is pretty rare to find.

Randy

[warnerwh]

Speakers and room acoustics with good quality electronics.  In that order.

[andyr]

The problem with dipoles like the Maggies is that they often exaggerate the scale of instruments. Listen to an acoustic guitar for example. Not too many guitars I know of that are ten feet long. ...

Hi Tweaker,

Exaggerate the scale of the instrument ... my Maggie IIIAs - never!!

If you can recall the comment Andrew Loog-Oldham (I think that's his name - the Rolling Stone's Manager) said when he first heard Marianne Faithfull ... "An angel with big tits!!"

Well, she's certainly got a huge chest when I hear her, mate!  

No ... seriously, I must say I haven't noticed this "exaggeration" as you call it.  But then Maggie has been living in my house for 15 years now, so I haven't critically listened to many other speakers during this time.  And I have a very large, acoustically well-designed room ... so maybe the size of the room mates well with these 6' x 2' panels, so I get a good soundstage??

But, to me, side-ways soundstage is easy to attain.  You really need great electronics to get good depth - if anything, this is my achilles heel!  

Regards,

Andy

[Karsten]

Maybe I am in the minority here, but I think it takes more than speakers to get what you are looking for.  Source, preamp and amp play a part, everything in the path plays a part.  
I get a pretty good soundstage with my speakers, but I think I can get the same with other speakers too.

BTW, also read a post recently that made sense, you are actually not hearing the soundstage of the studio, you are hearing the soundstage the recording engineering creates when he mixes things.  Unless, it is a simple two mike recording with no real mixing, but that is pretty rare to find.

Randy

You are right, getting a good 3D soundstage is a matter of accuracy and cannot be isolated to the speakers alone. The rule about weakest link does indeed apply here as well.

Brg,
Karsten

[JLM]

IMO imaging/soundstaging is what separates audiophiles from the rest of the herd.

Factors in providing good imaging:

1. Recording first.  Can't hear it if it ain't there to start with.  Realize that most music is amplified, recorded in studios, and manipulated in a hundred ways.  So constructing an image is almost always completely artifical.  Like most aspects in typical recordings, if they consider it, its made to be hyper-real.  One trip to the symphony reveals that 100 performers create a wall of sound (there is no discrete image for each performer).  A small ensemble with 2 mikes is probably the best you can hope for playback via speakers (a few such purist studios/recordings exist).  The most ideal system I've found is biaural recordings/playback (two mikes mounted at the ears of a mannequin for use with headphone playback).

2. Speakers 2nd.  Arrays (typically a vertical stack of drivers) cannot image vertically as there's nothing to differentiate up and down.  As you add width (planners) the horizontal also losses focus.  Dipoles and bipoles (sound coming from front and back as in Magnepans or open baffle mounted drivers) predictably produce a large wall of sound with virtually no imaging.  Single driver speakers (what I own) would be ideal, but some of the best imaging I've ever heard came from small two-way standmounts as they simulate a point source (like a mike).

2. The room is 3rd.  I was listening to a xylophone once on a HT system and as the performer ran from one end to the other the imaging was good enough to to start at the right and move left, however a TV was in the way and while the sound remained, the image was lost while "in the TV".  Another instance involved a coin rolling across the bar, falling to the floor, and rolling in a circle to a stop (had the speakers been mounted on the floor it couldn't have sounded like that).

3. Source machine is always 4th.  Again can't hear it if it ain't there to start with.  Somehow vinyl has always imaged better than digital to my ear.

4. Pre/Power amps are last (forget cabling and other tweaky things).  The new amp I just picked up added depth and allows the "little sounds" to have their own space and so they can be heard much more clearly now.

Obtaining proper imaging/soundstaging is a giant struggle with little chance of success.  Welcome to this obsessive fringe past time.

[PhilNYC]

JLM's response reflects mostly what  I think, although I might swap room and speakers.  I've heard great speakers deliver horrible soundstaging/imaging in a poor acoustic environment, and mediocre speakers deliver pretty impressive soundstaging/imaging in a very good acoustic environment...

[Mike D]

"Dipoles and bipoles (sound coming from front and back as in Magnepans or open baffle mounted drivers) predictably produce a large wall of sound with virtually no imaging."

Imaging is what my magnepans do best.  

[raov1]

Do these planars need complimentation with a sub for low frequencies?
I'll try to listen to a pair this week
How is the sound stage of the horn speakers? some of the pics show a gigantic contraption filling the room with its unique design

Meanwhile I'll have to fetch my calculator and my measurig tape and start calculating ..... what was that formula again
 Tweeter X (0.66) X the distance between the ears?

[Harmon]

The sad truth is that the vast majority of audiophiles do not have a  room that has professional acoustal treatment since that would cost some big bucks. A dedicated professional acoustically treated room can contribute as much as 50% or more of the sound of a high-end system.

[Mike D]

I compliment mine with a sub that I purchased years before I purchased the speakers.  The sub is set for 40 hz and below with the volume set on 3 out of 10.  I think most people who purchase maggies do not use subs.

The math thing is quite neurotic.  But judging from your post in which your summarized our ideas in a prioritized list, we share a bit of the same affliction.     My friends have all made fun of me to some degree about "moving my speakers an inch this way or that."  After they tease me, they are impressed by the difference and still tease.  

The moral of the story is, don't tell anyone.  Just do it.

[JoshK]

I think Maggie owners would have a much easier time with a dipole "sub" like the Pheonix woofer on Linkwitzlab.com.  There are a lot of reasons why this would be quite a bit easier to match with a planar speaker.

[Tweaker]

andyr,
The size exaggeration doesn't occur with all recordings and to me wasn't a big deal as imaging isn't tops on my list of importance. Who cares if the instruments aren't placed in space exactly as the original recording, (if that were possible to know), or, as randytsuch pointed out, where the engineer moved them to during the mix? (Well, I guess somebody does, thus this thread). It doesn't bother me during live concerts and it doesn't bother me at home. I actually liked the scale being  larger than life with my Maggies and Acoustats but on certain recordings instruments were definitely HUGE. I pointed it out because there appears to be a focus on the soundstage being as accurate as possible which I also assumed meant in scale. I also think it's nonsense to say, as JLM suggested,  that dipoles and bipoles produce "virtually no imaging."  I've owned Maggies, Acoustats, Mirage, and Definitive Tech speakers and they all did the imaging thing incredibly well!  
 By the way, my soundstage was the opposite of yours. I always had great depth with my dipoles but the width was confined to the outside edges of the speakers. They are magic, though, when set up properly and I sure do miss them sometimes.  I don't miss the Acoustats but definitely wish I had kept the Magnepans.

[Aether Audio]

raov1,

here's my $0.02 worth on the subject,  One of the main criteria I use for development is to achieve excellent imaging and soundstage.  It has been shown mathematically that two channels have the ability to carry enough information to produce a 180 degree hemispherical sound field.

Contrary to what is commonly believed, my research has shown the two most important areas of performance necessary to achieve the best results is low diffraction and L/R enclosure matching with respect to frequency and phase response.  The idea has been promoted that flat phase/zero group-delay is the key.  This is in error.  As long as both speakers are highly matched (regardless of total phase rotation) and the same for their frequency response (+/-1 dB or less) - then they should image very well.  Even still, large amounts of enclosure diffraction in the mids and highs can seriously detract from this though.  Edge diffraction "outlines" the location of the speakers in the time domain and tends to ruin the "disappearing act" we want speakers to exhibit.

The above suggestions regarding electrostatic and such speakers delivering good imaging has definite merit.  Reason being, seeing that they use a single membrane for reproducing most (if not all) of the spectrum and have no crossover, they are likely to be fairly closely matched L-R in their responses.  The electro-mechanical parameters of their relatively large membrane will likely dominate their response, and therefore be fairly consistent from unit to unit.

But...if a dynamic driver based system can achieve the same level of consistency and L/R matching, they have the potential to offer the exact same level of performance - possibly even better.  Due to the very fact that they do posses a crossover and more than one driver, the designer has far more flexibility in "tweaking" the final response.  Designs based on a single membrane do not offer this luxury and so therefore the final system response is pretty much whatever you get.

How do I know that such imaging is possible from a dynamic driver based design?...that's what we do.

-Bob