[James Tanner]

Hi Folks,

I am just wondering what you all think is the 'most' important to the 'least' important component in an audio system when it comes to presenting a 3 dimensional soundstage?

james

[danman]

I hope I understood your question properly so I will give it a try:

1. Amps
2. Pre-Amp
3. Speakers
4. Source components (analogue or digital)
5. Cables

In my opinion and from experience up until now, I strongly believe the amps and pre amps are the main deciders of this and then the choice of speakers to properly reproduce it. This is what I have noticed so far but I am not as experienced as some of you here and am curious to your responses.

This did have a lot to do with my choice of Bryston with my particular speakers.

[satfrat]

1. Loudspeakers (hands down IMHO)
 
2. power conditioning (any house is crap w/o a sound foundation, power is the foundation to any audio/video system IMHO)
 
2. Source gear (w/o a high quality audio source, how can one expect high quality music?)
 
3. amp
 
4. processor (that includes a DAC)
 
5. Room treatment
 
6. Wire (speaker, IC, digital, power, video, etc)
 
7. Tweaks (aka fine tuning)
 
Cheers,
Robin

[jimdgoulding]

I hope I understood your question properly so I will give it a try:

1. Amps
2. Pre-Amp
3. Speakers
4. Source components (analogue or digital)
5. Cables

In my opinion and from experience up until now, I strongly believe the amps and pre amps are the main deciders of this and then the choice of speakers to properly reproduce it. This is what I have noticed so far but I am not as experienced as some of you here and am curious to your responses.

This did have a lot to do with my choice of Bryston with my particular speakers.

+1 for what Danman said.  Once a system is assembled, for it to image to its capability and develop a stage proportionate to what is in a recording, comes positioning one's speakers and listening spot in the room.  Then, treatment as may be needed, IME.

[Bill]

The actual recording, whether it's a CD, lp or whatever is by far the most important followed by the loudspeaker. Room acoustics would be third. CD player, amps and preamps have little or no bearing on soundstage whatsoever. I had a table radio that produced a wonderful soundstage if fed the right material.

[James Tanner]

The actual recording, whether it's a CD, lp or whatever is by far the most important followed by the loudspeaker. Room acoustics would be third. CD player, amps and preamps have little or no bearing on soundstage whatsoever. I had a table radio that produced a wonderful soundstage if fed the right material.

Hi Bill,

Love your avatar!

What about using the early strong reflections in the room to 'create' phantom images. They are not on the recording of course but they exist because of a strong first reflection? So it appears as if sounds are coming from outside the speaker boundaries?

james

[konut]

Lets assume best case scenario for source ie Blumlein pair recording. In order to preserve the spacial cues it is necessary to maintain the phase relationships along the full frequency spectrum from playback source to ear. Any part of that chain can wreck havoc on the signal but typically, in order of the most usual suspects are 1. speaker 2. acoustics 3. source component 4.wiring. Its hard to find an amp and/or preamp that screws with phase these days, but I'm sure they're out there.   

[James Tanner]

Lets assume best case scenario for source ie Blumlein pair recording. In order to preserve the spacial cues it is necessary to maintain the phase relationships along the full frequency spectrum from playback source to ear. Any part of that chain can wreck havoc on the signal but typically, in order of the most usual suspects are 1. speaker 2. acoustics 3. source component 4.wiring. Its hard to find an amp and/or preamp that screws with phase these days, but I'm sure they're out there.   

That's an important point konut - I have always wondered if people felt amplifiers could affect image quality - given a reasonable and competent design of course with good phase integrity.

james

[Mag]

As you know James I use an Enhancer in MC mode. This enhances harmonics that are lost in the digital recordings. However with my limited experience with a quality 2 channel pre-amp. A harmonic enhancer is probably not needed.

What is needed then is to preserve as much of the harmonics from a recording through to the component chain. Harmonics is what gives a convincing 3D soundstage.

[Toka]

I don't really like lists but as a general notion:


1. Speaker/room interface (I put these together because nobody listens to speakers in a vacuum...for all intents and purposes they are a package deal)

2. Recording (you won't get a 3-D image out of something that was recorded/mixed/mastered otherwise)

3. Equipment (pre-amp/amp primarily)

4. Everything else

[budt]

1) recording
2) speaker
3)speaker/room interface
4) preamp
5)source
6)amp

[werd]

Hello

To me the answer lies in the way your speakers interact with the room. Ime everyroom has a different volume boundary. Most rooms i find only a low volume levels can this be a achieved.
Once the volume goes up the sounstage begins to retract. I guess this is where room treatments come in, that i have had little experience with.

Also inline with Satfrat's list the quality of AC either will  enhance or smear low level music signal detail.And also good power is a must to maintain layering and timing, that really makes 3d believable. IMHO

[satfrat]

Hello

To me the answer lies in the way your speakers interact with the room. Ime everyroom has a different volume boundary. Most rooms i find only a low volume levels can this be a achieved.
Once the volume goes up the sounstage begins to retract. I guess this is where room treatments come in, that i have had little experience with.

Also inline with Satfrat's list the quality of AC either will  enhance or smear low level music signal detail.And also good power is a must to maintain layering and timing, that really makes 3d believable. IMHO

In my system, I have found extensive use of Bybee's, especially in the power and on the loudspeaker terminals greatly enhance the 3D soundstage depth which in turn help hide the loudspeakers. It's what works for me, ymmv. 
 
Cheers,
Robin

[robb]

What's a bybee?

[satfrat]

What's a bybee?

Google is your friend, do the research. 

[James Tanner]

What's a bybee?

http://www.bybeesambulls.com/

james

[satfrat]

What's a bybee?

http://www.bybeesambulls.com/

james

  There ya go! 

[b5pt9]

PETA won't like plugging house pets into speaker terminals

[Mad Mr H]

........My opinions.........

Picking ANY reasonable quality system and not changing the equipment list.....

Then Speaker height and angle are most important for sound stage.

Actual speaker placement within the room will alter peaks/troughs within reproduction and may alter sound stage but the primary reason for placement is best/correct interaction with room acoustics.

Amps / Pre Amps / Cables (There I said it !!!)

All alter soundstage. Most (Quality) CD source equipment sounds similar in sound stage, to date I still miss my Mark Levinson transport/DAC combination that was breath taking in detail but I did not feel altered sound stage as much as Amp / Pre Amp / Cables.

(Waiting for BCD1 / BDA1 to arrive then I will post again about CD source and Soundstage)


I saw mention of power conditioner above - The primary advantage of these is to lower the noise floor which enhances detail. I have conditioners running all amplifiers, The second part of the power conditioner is the isolation of noise BACK onto the mains.........I found amplifiers to give the largest noise back so it is the amplifiers that I have the best mains conditioners running, treat the source equipment as well but most important is the amps.


Also mention of first reflection - This is a concept that Bose (and others) use to create a full sound within the room. Many of their multi driver cabinets use variable angle driver mounting to increase dispersion and multi first reflection points. this may help create a spacial sound in 2ch mode, getting close to that of multi ch. Room size is main factor in first reflection , Large room and first reflection less prominent, small room and first reflection can really alter the image, hence use of near field monitors.


Quality of recording - This I would hope is constant with modern cd recordings, but sadly this is far from true.

Anyone tried wide image recordings ???

I keep meaning to try "isomike" recordings from kimber, there are other wide angle recordings but few seem available as normal recordings sell why try other forms......multi ch spacial recordings with deliberate wide soundstage are worth a try.


Andy H.

[rob80b]

The recording comes first (think of stereo to mono), next the speakers, the room then the amplification, but all play an important part.
The sound stage has to be on the recording; its either how the microphones were set up or tracks were manually panned from right to left and processed, reverb etc. Perceived soundstage depth has to have depth cues, some speaker though have been designed to give the perception of depth on all recordings, which may sound nice but is in fact a false representation of what was on the recording. The majority of multi-track studio recordings should have little if any three dimensional depth.
Speaker placement definitely plays the biggest role; just try changing the angle of the speakers (even cheap speakers) in relation to the listening position. If the total system is properly setup with competent components then the soundstage and depth will dramatically change with each recording.
For an example I was listening to a live recording of Dead Can Dance where the sound stage exceeded the width and height of the room with lots of layering (each performer had their space on the stage from front to back), while the next recording shrank considerably.
When I moved up from a 3BST to the 4BSST there was a change in stage presentation, moving up from my Dynaudio 1.3MKIIs speakers to the Dynaudio Special 25s the change was quite dramatic in terms of height, width and depth, when present on the disc, which I attribute to the Esotar tweeter on the 25’s.
When reading reviews we have to be careful if the reviewer states that B outperformed A in staging and depth, B might recreate a false sense of staging on everything, while A is actual the better product and recreates the original recording as it should be.

So I’d have to say that the speaker/room positioning is the most important, next source and amplification and then cables etc.
Even a low-end system as I mentioned, if set up properly, can produce satisfactory staging, but as the ability of the separate components in the chain increases, each allows finer details to emerge, recreating a better rendition of the original spatial cues (if present) on the recording.

Robert