Ingredients of Good Sound

[hungry_anteater]

I’m still pretty new to high-end audio and the science behind it. I’ve learned a ton from Amir and others on these forums.

When thinking about what exactly makes something sound “good”, I’ve made some interesting and counterintuitive discoveries during my own personal listening sessions over the last year or so. Some of these are obvious but others seem counterintuitive or even go against mainstream opinion. I’d like to share these observations and theories and hopefully get feedback.

Observations:
- Mood seems to be one of the biggest factors in determining “good sound.” For me personally, I’d even say it could be the biggest. I’m a musician and pretty emotional at times so maybe this is a bigger deal for me than if is for others. But there are days where my favorite tracks bring tears to my eyes, where everything sounds rich and detailed and beautiful, even mundane sound effects, and I’m left in awe of my sound system. But then there are other days where the exact same sounds and songs sound fine, or even good, but not nearly as amazing as other days. This has been the biggest surprise for me in my own listening.
- Good sound seems to depend heavily on the absence of noticeable, distracting imperfections like resonances, crackles, distortions, etc. Focusing on minimizing a system’s weaknesses seems more important than maximizing its strengths.
- Good sound seems to require bass that isn’t too soft or too loud and is even/smooth. Booming bass seems just as bad or even worse than a total lack of bass. But it seems to me that the sound quality seems to jump way up when the bass is calibrated just right and blends well with the higher frequencies.
- High volumes seem to be a requirement, unfortunately. For me personally, 70-90 DB.
- Scale? Not sure what to call this exactly, but it isn’t exactly volume, but more of the feeling of being enveloped by the sound.
- There seems to be a limited window of listening time before the ears seem to start to become desensitized. Turning up the volume gradually can counter this a bit but this just seems to lead to fatigue. So for me I can only get about 1 hour of listening at maximum sound quality.
- I keep hearing that bass frequencies can’t be localized. Heck, movie theaters are designed around this. But I swear I can hear the location of the subwoofers which are rolled off at 80hz. It’s not as noticeable as higher frequencies, but it’s easy to hear. Stereo bass seems to sound better to me. Am I fooling myself?
- Room acoustics seem to be absolutely massive. Perhaps even more important than the speaker. Even moving furniture around slightly can change the sound significantly. Rugs are huge.
- Source material/recording/mixing is obviously huge. High quality speakers don’t seem to help low-quality audio sound any better at all. If anything, bad audio seems to sound even worse through good speakers.
- I have trouble hearing or fully understanding this concept of “imaging.” I keep reading about it and I know lots of people value it. But I don’t really understand what amazing imaging would sound like in a stereo system. Pinpointing the location of an instrument doesn’t seem to make sense to me unless you’re talking about surround sound with lots of channels. I’ve noticed dialog suffers when the L/R speakers are too far apart or not pointed in enough. Is this part of imaging?

Would love to hear any feedback on my thoughts.

 

[Sokel]

- There seems to be a limited window of listening time before the ears seem to start to become desensitized. Turning up the volume gradually can counter this a bit but this just seems to lead to fatigue. So for me I can only get about 1 hour of listening at maximum sound quality.

That's completely wrong.
In a well tuned rig you can listen for days,if not try to find the cause.

I can't imagine you would leave a great opera in the middle?
(some of them last 4 hours and a few goes to 5 or even more!)

 

[fpitas]

I’m still pretty new to high-end audio and the science behind it. I’ve learned a ton from Amir and others on these forums.

When thinking about what exactly makes something sound “good”, I’ve made some interesting and counterintuitive discoveries during my own personal listening sessions over the last year or so. Some of these are obvious but others seem counterintuitive or even go against mainstream opinion. I’d like to share these observations and theories and hopefully get feedback.

Observations:
- Mood seems to be one of the biggest factors in determining “good sound.” For me personally, I’d even say it could be the biggest. I’m a musician and pretty emotional at times so maybe this is a bigger deal for me than if is for others. But there are days where my favorite tracks bring tears to my eyes, where everything sounds rich and detailed and beautiful, even mundane sound effects, and I’m left in awe of my sound system. But then there are other days where the exact same sounds and songs sound fine, or even good, but not nearly as amazing as other days. This has been the biggest surprise for me in my own listening.
- Good sound seems to depend heavily on the absence of noticeable, distracting imperfections like resonances, crackles, distortions, etc. Focusing on minimizing a system’s weaknesses seems more important than maximizing its strengths.
- Good sound seems to require bass that isn’t too soft or too loud and is even/smooth. Booming bass seems just as bad or even worse than a total lack of bass. But it seems to me that the sound quality seems to jump way up when the bass is calibrated just right and blends well with the higher frequencies.
- High volumes seem to be a requirement, unfortunately. For me personally, 70-90 DB.
- Scale? Not sure what to call this exactly, but it isn’t exactly volume, but more of the feeling of being enveloped by the sound.
- There seems to be a limited window of listening time before the ears seem to start to become desensitized. Turning up the volume gradually can counter this a bit but this just seems to lead to fatigue. So for me I can only get about 1 hour of listening at maximum sound quality.
- I keep hearing that bass frequencies can’t be localized. Heck, movie theaters are designed around this. But I swear I can hear the location of the subwoofers which are rolled off at 80hz. It’s not as noticeable as higher frequencies, but it’s easy to hear. Stereo bass seems to sound better to me. Am I fooling myself?
- Room acoustics seem to be absolutely massive. Perhaps even more important than the speaker. Even moving furniture around slightly can change the sound significantly. Rugs are huge.
- Source material/recording/mixing is obviously huge. High quality speakers don’t seem to help low-quality audio sound any better at all. If anything, bad audio seems to sound even worse through good speakers.
- I have trouble hearing or fully understanding this concept of “imaging.” I keep reading about it and I know lots of people value it. But I don’t really understand what amazing imaging would sound like in a stereo system. Pinpointing the location of an instrument doesn’t seem to make sense to me unless you’re talking about surround sound with lots of channels. I’ve noticed dialog suffers when the L/R speakers are too far apart or not pointed in enough. Is this part of imaging?

Would love to hear any feedback on my thoughts.

I'm with you for the most part. But that does sound like your system has a problem.

 

[bodhi]

It kind of bothers me that I think I have setups about as good as it gets for nearfield and near-midfield listening.

Unfortunately you can't fix small room with equipment. Big room with big speakers is just something completely different.

 

[fpitas]

It kind of bothers me that I think I have setups about as good as it gets for nearfield and near-midfield listening.

Unfortunately you can't fix small room with equipment. Big room with big speakers is just something completely different.

Still, it's possible to make things much better, I improved my smallish music room (with truly huge speakers) a lot with various acoustic panels and diffusers.

 

[radix]

I’m still pretty new to high-end audio and the science behind it. I’ve learned a ton from Amir and others on these forums.

When thinking about what exactly makes something sound “good”, I’ve made some interesting and counterintuitive discoveries during my own personal listening sessions over the last year or so. Some of these are obvious but others seem counterintuitive or even go against mainstream opinion. I’d like to share these observations and theories and hopefully get feedback.

Would love to hear any feedback on my thoughts.

Do you use room EQ? As you noted, the room can have a massive effect on frequencies. If you find a room mode and you play just that frequency, it is easy to notice that as you move around the room the tone gets louder/softer just a foot or two one way or another. When people say that toeing in or out their speakers helped a lot, it can be a real thing as they are changing the first reflections. Properly positing subs (and speakers) is important for this reason too, and this is also why some recommend 2 or more subs. I'd suggest reading up on how to use REW to measure your room and consider adding in room EQ based on your findings, or at least see how speaker position and aiming affects the sound at your listening position. In many threads here you will see people recommending room treatments towards the top (if not at the top) of the list on how to improve sound.

You mentioned mood. Personally, I also think this is a big one. I, for example, sometimes like listening to LPs. It's a nostalgia thing, like comfort food. I know its not technically better sound, but it can trigger me in a way that makes me like it. I'm not a tube amp guy, but some people just prefer that sound.

 

[Cote Dazur]

"Would love to hear any feedback on my thoughts." since you ask.
Please see my feedback to a few points, from the perspective of 45 years to attentively listening to music at home, searching for better sound or music and reaching most of my goals once I had a dedicated listening room.

high-end audio

Interesting term, isn't it? Does not mean much, mostly used by subjectivist to mask that they have no solid argument why item a is better than item b or even different at all.

Mood seems to be one of the biggest factors in determining “good sound.”

I do not find that to be true for me, but willing to listen to music, feel the emotion, rather than willing to listen to sound, sure helps me.

Good sound seems to require bass that isn’t too soft or too loud and is even/smooth

Yes, very important, bass is a key to the kingdom, but too much or not well define can kill the magic, so, often less (but well controlled) is more. The room is where the good bass is.

But I swear I can hear the location of the subwoofers which are rolled off at 80hz.

Am I fooling myself?

Very likely and easy to prove to yourself, have someone move the sub(s) with your eyes close and see if you can still locate it/them.

Room acoustics seem to be absolutely massive. Perhaps even more important than the speaker

Yes and yes. where you seat in the room as well as in relation to the speakers will lift most of the weight.

bad audio seems to sound even worse through good speakers.

The reverse would be hilarious, but on the other end a lot of "high end" peddlers would like you to think that is a sign of a good system, when most recordings sound like crap but a few "audiophile" recording sound great.
In my experience, on a balanced system, most music is interesting to hear, the emotion goes trough and the recording are not that bad. Recordings from professional studios played by good musician are usually quite good on a good system,

But I don’t really understand what amazing imaging would sound like in a stereo system

That tells me you need to work on your speaker and sitting position in your room. Although "imaging" is an illusion created by your brain, it is accessible with almost any well positioned amplifier/speaker combo.
Some recordings provide an easier to access imaging>
To me, with my seat and speakers, almost in the middle of my dedicated room, it is one of the great aspect of the music I listen to, not pinpoint, as to me it does not exist in real-life, but to have the music fill a space in 3 dimension, with good bass, it provides me with a musical experience that makes it more involving to listen to.

listening sessions over the last year or so

I understand it is all new to you and can be quite overwhelming, good luck in your journey.

 

[DVDdoug]

- Source material/recording/mixing is obviously huge.

Yes. It starts with a good recording (links in the chain).

The philosophy of "high fidelity" is to accurately reproduce the recording. So good sound is mostly about having no defects in the reproduction.* Accurate reproduction may also mean "realistic" (live) sound levels but most of us don't listen that loud, at least not every day.

But sometimes listeners prefer a little more bass or treble, or the recording may not be perfect so you may not want perfectly-accurate reproduction... With regular stereo music, I like to use a surround "soundfield" setting on my AVR to add rear channel reverb and simulate the acoustics of a larger space. ...I'm not listening "accurately" or "as intended"

As you reduce the volume it sounds like you've turned-down the bass even more (Equal Loudness Curves) so it usually helps to boost the bass at lower volumes. (Older receivers used to have a "loudness" switch to optionally boost the bass as you turned-down the volume control but this has become rare.) And if you lower the volume a lot, the "little details" drop out of audibility.

- I have trouble hearing or fully understanding this concept of “imaging.”

It's the illusion of the placement of the various instruments and vocals. Of course with regular stereo the sound is really just coming from two speakers. It depends on the recording, speaker placement, and acoustics, and whatever is going-on in your head. Personally, it's not something I worry about as long as I'm getting an impression of stereo. I'm mostly listening to rock which is created in the studio with the instruments & vocals "artificially" panned left-to-right.

I keep hearing that bass frequencies can’t be localized.

The bass in most recordings is summed to mono (identical in both channels) anyway.

Your mood or fatigue don't affect sound quality, but of course they can affect your enjoyment of sound/music. A lot of people (including a lot of musicians) can enjoy the underlying music and they are not overly concerned with sound quality.




* Audiophoolery describes the characteristics that define audio quality. Most modern electronics are usually audibly perfect unless you're hearing background noise (hum, hiss, or whine) or unless you over-drive an amplifier into distortion.

Speakers (and headphones) make the biggest difference. The biggest difference between speakers is frequency response and to some extent that can be tweaked with EQ. But with excess EQ, like trying to over-boost the bass with a small speaker you can drive the speaker and/or amplifier into distortion.

Room acoustics are also important and your speakers will sound different in a different room. Again it's mostly frequency response, and mostly in the low frequencies. Standing waves create nulls (dips) and anti-nodes (bumps) in the frequency response. You can fix a bump but it can take "infinite" amplifier power to fix a node where the direct and reflected soundwaves cancel.

 

[Mean & Green]

I’m still pretty new to high-end audio and the science behind it. I’ve learned a ton from Amir and others on these forums.

When thinking about what exactly makes something sound “good”, I’ve made some interesting and counterintuitive discoveries during my own personal listening sessions over the last year or so. Some of these are obvious but others seem counterintuitive or even go against mainstream opinion. I’d like to share these observations and theories and hopefully get feedback.

Observations:
- Mood seems to be one of the biggest factors in determining “good sound.” For me personally, I’d even say it could be the biggest. I’m a musician and pretty emotional at times so maybe this is a bigger deal for me than if is for others. But there are days where my favorite tracks bring tears to my eyes, where everything sounds rich and detailed and beautiful, even mundane sound effects, and I’m left in awe of my sound system. But then there are other days where the exact same sounds and songs sound fine, or even good, but not nearly as amazing as other days. This has been the biggest surprise for me in my own listening.
- Good sound seems to depend heavily on the absence of noticeable, distracting imperfections like resonances, crackles, distortions, etc. Focusing on minimizing a system’s weaknesses seems more important than maximizing its strengths.
- Good sound seems to require bass that isn’t too soft or too loud and is even/smooth. Booming bass seems just as bad or even worse than a total lack of bass. But it seems to me that the sound quality seems to jump way up when the bass is calibrated just right and blends well with the higher frequencies.
- High volumes seem to be a requirement, unfortunately. For me personally, 70-90 DB.
- Scale? Not sure what to call this exactly, but it isn’t exactly volume, but more of the feeling of being enveloped by the sound.
- There seems to be a limited window of listening time before the ears seem to start to become desensitized. Turning up the volume gradually can counter this a bit but this just seems to lead to fatigue. So for me I can only get about 1 hour of listening at maximum sound quality.
- I keep hearing that bass frequencies can’t be localized. Heck, movie theaters are designed around this. But I swear I can hear the location of the subwoofers which are rolled off at 80hz. It’s not as noticeable as higher frequencies, but it’s easy to hear. Stereo bass seems to sound better to me. Am I fooling myself?
- Room acoustics seem to be absolutely massive. Perhaps even more important than the speaker. Even moving furniture around slightly can change the sound significantly. Rugs are huge.
- Source material/recording/mixing is obviously huge. High quality speakers don’t seem to help low-quality audio sound any better at all. If anything, bad audio seems to sound even worse through good speakers.
- I have trouble hearing or fully understanding this concept of “imaging.” I keep reading about it and I know lots of people value it. But I don’t really understand what amazing imaging would sound like in a stereo system. Pinpointing the location of an instrument doesn’t seem to make sense to me unless you’re talking about surround sound with lots of channels. I’ve noticed dialog suffers when the L/R speakers are too far apart or not pointed in enough. Is this part of imaging?

Would love to hear any feedback on my thoughts.

I’m with you on most of that. Particularly mood and the importance of getting the bass just right.

Also room acoustics are one of the biggest issues with hifi, having heard the same equipment and recordings in different locations the differences are massive. This is where good headphones can serve as a good reference point.

I don’t find that volume levels need to be as high as your preference unless I’m in a particularly euphoric or lively mood. I also don’t suffer with fatigue, but that may be volume related in your case. Usually when I’m in the mood for some music one track or album just seems to keep flowing to the next and having to go to bed is what forces the fun to end rather than listening fatigue.

My thoughts on your sub from what you say would indicate to me that your sub settings are set too high. If you can pin point a sub by ear it isn’t set up correctly.

Lastly my thoughts on imaging are that it’s an illusion that gets blown out of all proportion. Imaging to me means that there are not obviously two speakers emitting sound, but rather the sound or ‘image’ hangs in free space with some depth to it. So for example vocals up front and centre with drums to the back, guitar on one side, different guitar or maybe keyboard on the other side as a rough example.

I don’t buy into this pin point accuracy of location and don’t believe it’s possible, the way I see it is the ‘image’ I get in my head when listening to headphones should also translate to the space between my speakers.

 

[Prana Ferox]

I think it's pretty obvious, what the main ingredient of good sound is

 

[MaxwellsEq]

I've read that the cheapest upgrade is a glass of wine, whiskey, sherry etc.

Your point about mood is interesting. In general, listening to music always improves my mood. I don't find that my mood impacts whether I think the sound quality is better or worse. But, of course, our brains do the processing of sound, so there's nothing to say that mood can't affect how we perceive sound quality.

 

[killdozzer]

@hungry_anteater
Interesting observations. Most of them are spot on. I even agree about the mood and listening sessions. I see some members don't. I gave this a thought and have a question for you that MIGHT make a difference between a fault in your system and an actual influence of the mood. When you're in a good/music listening mood, can you get more than an hour-long session? If not even then, how old are you and how much do you listen to music? I think this is also something that grows on you. I had a long pause in hifi and after coming back to it, my sessions were shorter than they are now.

However, there are days when I can't listen to anything (this is most often true when I'm nervous). So I guess the right question is if you have days with much longer listening sessions? If yes, it might not be your system after all.

 

[Sokel]

@hungry_anteater
Interesting observations. Most of them are spot on. I even agree about the mood and listening sessions. I see some members don't. I gave this a thought and have a question for you that MIGHT make a difference between a fault in your system and an actual influence of the mood. When you're in a good/music listening mood, can you get more than an hour-long session? If not even then, how old are you and how much do you listen to music? I think this is also something that grows on you. I had a long pause in hifi and after coming back to it, my sessions were shorter than they are now.

However, there are days when I can't listen to anything (this is most often true when I'm nervous). So I guess the right question is if you have days with much longer listening sessions? If yes, it might not be your system after all.

To be honest there are some gear to make it unbearable for me too,and not even as long as an hour,even less than that.
For me is treble heavy,thin sounded ones.Or undefined bass ones that messes with mids (like the ones that the subs stretch up to 100-120-150Hz to fill holes).
But in the case of OP that has made a system based on the right guidelines here there must be something else.

 

[killdozzer]

To be honest there are some gear to make it unbearable for me too,and not even as long as an hour,even less than that.
For me is treble heavy,thin sounded ones.Or undefined bass ones that messes with mids (like the ones that the subs stretch up to 100-120-150Hz to fill holes).
But in the case of OP that has made a system based on the right guidelines here there must be something else.

Well, might be. But I'm telling you, much the same way I can't stand to be massaged at any given moment, I can't have my other senses excited at any time. What I tried to say is that the same system I some times listen to 8-9 hours, I sometime can't stand to hear.

 

[dorakeg]

- Room acoustics seem to be absolutely massive. Perhaps even more important than the speaker. Even moving furniture around slightly can change the sound significantly. Rugs are huge.

Ye,s I fully agreed with this. Room acoustics is every more important than speakers!! All the unwanted sound reflections will affect the sound quality.

 

[OldHvyMec]

I read this so many times I need a to make a rubber stamp. It's always the room. The use of passive materials AFTER you take measurement above 300hz.
Below 300hz and DECOUPLING, mains and especially sub/bass boxes. Now tune the peaks with Helmholtz traps and reflective points with heavy curtains.
It's not the Berkeley Community Theater, but is pretty darn good. IF you need to tinker with a PEQ or GEQ below 300hz it will be hit an miss I assure you. IF
you tame the peaks below 300 it will be easier to fix the dips with a PEQ. Below 60-80hz (depending on the ceiling height) I use OB 12" servos. I use as many
drivers as it takes to load one of my rooms. 2-6 drivers in 1, 2, or 3 different locations.

I sat the rooms up over 35 years ago, the floors are marked for location. Add Mains and 30 minute later I'm done. I don't care who made the main speaker. If
I can split the bass section from the monitor (bi-amped) We are good. You will never get the bass in any large enclosure to work correctly if the mids and highs
are in the same enclosure You can try to align the drivers, but in reality bass, mids and highs in the same box don't work as well as separating the TWO. Subs
are Subs they have nothing to do with either. 60-80hz and below are separate cabinets again, though they are an OB design.

EVERYTHING is decoupled. ME I'm just unhinged.

Regards

 

[MattHooper]

Lastly my thoughts on imaging are that it’s an illusion that gets blown out of all proportion.

What does that mean?

Imaging and soundstaging can be very impressive, at least many audiophiles find this to be the case. I certainly do! My system sometimes feels like a holodeck that changes the size shape and acoustics of the room from behind the plane of the speakers. I love it. (But I first make sure I like other general aspects, like timbre of instruments sound 'right,' dynamics are there, etc).

Imaging to me means that there are not obviously two speakers emitting sound, but rather the sound or ‘image’ hangs in free space with some depth to it. So for example vocals up front and centre with drums to the back, guitar on one side, different guitar or maybe keyboard on the other side as a rough example.

I don’t buy into this pin point accuracy of location and don’t believe it’s possible, the way I see it is the ‘image’ I get in my head when listening to headphones should also translate to the space between my speakers.

It's relevant to talk about precision in imaging because it's a real thing. Some speakers (and this will include the set up in any particular room) will image with significantly more precision than others. If you go from one set of speakers the images may seem larger or more diffuse, then to a more precise pair of speakers, it's like putting seeing glasses on and everything seems to come in to sharper focus and density. People can prefer either type of presentation, but since it's real phenomena it's good to know about it.

I can get my system to where I can point to exactly where each sonic image in a recording seems to be located. Of course talking about how "pin-point" the imaging is will ultimately be subjective, how the illusion seems to any particular person. But I would certainly deem some imaging I've heard as "pin-point" in terms of the sensation of an instrument or voice seeming to be right specifically in a spot in the soundstage, in a dense form, where other imaging is much more vague and diffuse.

Also: you aren't going to get the same soundstaging from a stereo system as you do from headphones, unless perhaps you listen to the speakers pointed directly at the sides of your head...which I doubt you do. So I would sorta give up on that idea.....they are different delivery systems. (Unless perhaps you are using some form of signal processing in your headphones that attempt to put the image out front like from speakers).

 

[OldHvyMec]

.they are different delivery systems. (Unless perhaps you are using some form of signal processing in your headphones that attempt to put the image out front like from speakers

I agree, with the exception of a few open planar devices I've used. The sub was a separate system on either side less than 3 feet away. It was like wearing a ring of sound around your ear with the sub/bass in close proximity on a huge set of head phones outside the open planars. Add visuals your in upchuck mode.

I have never enjoyed headphone but been very impressed with some of their abilities. There is no soundstage with headphones. Speakers setup correctly
you can pick out every single location and the depth. That is the difference. Left, center, right is pretty easy, the issue is always how big is the sweat spot.
The size of tennis ball or wide enough to let 4 people enjoy setting in pairs. Vice-lock for a sweat spot can be fantastic for all of about 2 minutes.
Add a lot of SS gear I'm gone in 30 seconds. The perfect amount of valve distortion is a requirement.

Regards

 

[Mean & Green]

What does that mean?

Imaging and soundstaging can be very impressive, at least many audiophiles find this to be the case. I certainly do! My system sometimes feels like a holodeck that changes the size shape and acoustics of the room from behind the plane of the speakers. I love it. (But I first make sure I like other general aspects, like timbre of instruments sound 'right,' dynamics are there, etc).



It's relevant to talk about precision in imaging because it's a real thing. Some speakers (and this will include the set up in any particular room) will image with significantly more precision than others. If you go from one set of speakers the images may seem larger or more diffuse, then to a more precise pair of speakers, it's like putting seeing glasses on and everything seems to come in to sharper focus and density. People can prefer either type of presentation, but since it's real phenomena it's good to know about it.

I can get my system to where I can point to exactly where each sonic image in a recording seems to be located. Of course talking about how "pin-point" the imaging is will ultimately be subjective, how the illusion seems to any particular person. But I would certainly deem some imaging I've heard as "pin-point" in terms of the sensation of an instrument or voice seeming to be right specifically in a spot in the soundstage, in a dense form, where other imaging is much more vague and diffuse.

Also: you aren't going to get the same soundstaging from a stereo system as you do from headphones, unless perhaps you listen to the speakers pointed directly at the sides of your head...which I doubt you do. So I would sorta give up on that idea.....they are different delivery systems. (Unless perhaps you are using some form of signal processing in your headphones that attempt to put the image out front like from speakers).

What does what mean?

Was what I’ve written not descriptive enough? I think pin point imaging gets blown out of all proportion by audiophiles. I’m not sure what else to add to that.

As for the headphones vs speakers imaging, think about it like this…

With headphones you have the left and right directly firing into your ears, yet there is no hole in the middle of what you hear is there? There is a complete ‘image’ albeit in your head but nevertheless it’s there.

Stereo is just that, a left channel and a right channel - there is no middle, or height, or front to back etc, but our brain gives us this illusion of a soundstage. The sound making up that illusion is coming from two distinct locations, there isn’t someone playing a triangle two thirds to the right and five feet up as an example because stereo isn’t recorded like that.

I totally get the illusion of sound being between the speakers, but not with every instrument in pin point precise locations. To me it’s more like how I originally described in my previous post which you quoted.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Stereo is just that, a left channel and a right channel - there is no middle, or height, or front to back etc, but our brain gives us this illusion of a soundstage. The sound making up that illusion is coming from two distinct locations, there isn’t a triangle two thirds to the right and five feet up as an example because stereo isn’t recorded like that.

Stereo was picked from the Greek language because of it's meaning of solid or three dimensional "before vowels stere-, word-forming element meaning "solid, firm; three-dimensional; stereophonic," from Greek stereos "solid" (from PIE root *ster- (1) "stiff")." hxxps://www.etymonline.com/word/stereo-

The whole point of a stereo system from the very first experiments until now has always been to reproduce a soundstage laid out in width and depth. There is no point having a stereo system if you are not able to reproduce an image with depth and width. It doesn't even have to be "HiFi", you can reproduce a solid image in depth and width with a relatively noisy and distorted system that does not have a great deal of bass or treble!

HiFi might be about trying to reproduce the widest, flattest frequency response with the least amount of noise and distortion, but you can do that with one speaker! If you have two speakers and are listening to 95% of commercially available content, then you are listening to a stereo source and for that to be properly reproduced, it MUST have soiid image defined in depth and width.