Properties of speakers that creates a large and precise soundstage

[Salt]

There's always talk between speakers and room.
Open baffle vs. cardioid, as they are opposite, or something in between: it depends on the room.

 

[Westsounds]

I think it's important to recognize that it's a psychoacoustic effect.

Exactly this. It's nothing more than an illusion. Conjured up by the brain to 'make 'some' sense' of the situation in front of you. It happens to be music playing generally, and most of us associate this with perhaps the setting of that environment and the way it was recorded, and there'll be audible clues in the recording we pick up on. Our minds go to work and voilà, imaginary sound stage now in front, plus that's where the speakers are usually situated. A lot of the time musicians are in different rooms recording in isolation unless it's a live setting or the way the bands recording it. How it's been mastered in the studio will take it another step away from what it actually sounded like in reality to something that sounds as good as possible to the engineer. Whichever way your speakers are, it may sound good, but it's anything but a real stage.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Exactly this. It's nothing more than an illusion. Conjured up by the brain to 'make 'some' sense' of the situation in front of you. It happens to be music playing generally, and most of us associate this with perhaps the setting of that environment and the way it was recorded, and there'll be audible clues in the recording we pick up on. Our minds go to work and voilà, imaginary sound stage now in front, plus that's where the speakers are usually situated. A lot of the time musicians are in different rooms recording in isolation unless it's a live setting or the way the bands recording it. How it's been mastered in the studio will take it another step away from what it actually sounded like in reality to something that sounds as good as possible to the engineer. Whichever way your speakers are, it may sound good, but it's anything but a real stage.

That doesn't make it any less satisfying. And when it comes to the ability of conjuring this illusion, not all speakers are created equal.

 

[Westsounds]

That doesn't make it any less satisfying. And when it comes to the ability of conjuring this illusion, not all speakers are created equal.

Despite my perhaps pessimistic view and choice of words, I totally agree with you. It is a wonderful experience at best and as you say, some seem to create much better images than others.

 

[Ricardus]

What does "precise sound stage" even mean? Unless you were in the room and saw where the mix engineer had stuff panned, how would you know if the "soundstage" was "precise"?

 

[Mr. Widget]

What does "precise sound stage" even mean?

As I have read more and more posts here and on other discussion forums it has become obvious that there are almost as many definitions of sound stage and imaging as there are listeners.

 

[ahofer]

What does "precise sound stage" even mean? Unless you were in the room and saw where the mix engineer had stuff panned, how would you know if the "soundstage" was "precise"?

I have used the term in the past, as a way to suggest the instrument placement within the 'image' was stable over time (or, more likely, frequency). I've come to realize that such instability is about room reflections, so more about the room reflections and even/uneven directivity than some other intrinsic characteristic of the speaker (or the electronics, which I think I believed at one time).

 

[Mr. Widget]

I have used the term in the past, as a way to suggest the instrument placement within the 'image' was stable over time. I've come to realize that such instability is about room reflections, so more about the room reflections and even/uneven directivity than some other intrinsic characteristic of the speaker (or the electronics, which I think I believed at one time).

100%

On your entire statement including the unsupported past belief that electronics may have played a role.

 

[RobL]

This song has a very well defined soundstage, at least to my ears on my speakers.
Is this a property of recording technique or is this a construction of the mix engineer? (As has been alluded to a few posts up)

 

[Emlin]

What does "precise sound stage" even mean? Unless you were in the room and saw where the mix engineer had stuff panned, how would you know if the "soundstage" was "precise"?

Say you're in a library, supermarket or bar. You can hear and place where different sounds are coming from, often very accurately. That is precision within the soundstage.

If the sounds are smeared and difficult to locate, that's lack of precision.

It matters not one jot whether the soundstage is real, ie you are there, or of it has been conjured up for you by an engineer, the difference is still apparent.

 

[Suono]

It is sufficient to make a stereo recording and play it back in your system to understand how faithful it is and no particular imagination of the brain is needed. will fully respect what happened. intensity and arrival times at the microphones will reconstruct the stage and spatiality

 

[Curvature]

intensity and arrival times at the microphones will reconstruct the stage and spatiality

They will not. They will reconstruct arrival time and intensity alone for that location of the microphone in space alone. In stereo, all microphone signals are ported into two front-facing channels. In doing so all of the volumetric information is lost. This is spatial distortion. You cannot analyze a stereo signal and reconstruct, from a recording, the distance between sources, for example, and so speakers cannot reproduce it. However, room reflections to some extent augment that lost volumetric information but, at a cost, since the result depends on the room and speaker directivity.

"Soundstage" is a combination of speakers, room, ears/brain and recording. We need to understand the contribution of each to what we hear.

@tmuikku You might be interested in this from our previous exchange in this thread.

 

[Emlin]

They will not. They will reconstruct arrival time and intensity alone for that location of the microphone in space alone. In stereo, all microphone signals are ported into two front-facing channels. In doing so all of the volumetric information is lost. This is spatial distortion. You cannot analyze a stereo signal and reconstruct, from a recording, the distance between sources, for example, and so speakers cannot reproduce it. However, room reflections to some extent augment that lost volumetric information but, at a cost, since the result depends on the room and speaker directivity.

"Soundstage" is a combination of speakers, room, ears/brain and recording. We need to understand the contribution of each to what we hear.

@tmuikku You might be interested in this from our previous exchange in this thread.

Soundstage is in the recording. Reverb mostly. Poor speakers and rooms can fuck with it.

 

[Curvature]

Soundstage is in the recording. Reverb mostly. Poor speakers and rooms can fuck with it.

Let's see you try to explain this without reference to speaker directivity, room reflections or known phenomena from auditory processing like the precedence effect.

 

[Emlin]

Let's see you try to explain this without reference to speaker directivity, room reflections or known phenomena from auditory processing like the precedence effect.

I get speaker-like soundstage when using iems, as I am now. Done.

 

[Curvature]

I get speaker-like soundstage when using iems, as I am now. Done.

The same thing happens with your IEMs on a much smaller scale. Substitute room for canal, and speakers with IEMs,

What point are you trying to make?

 

[Emlin]

The same thing happens with your IEMs on a much smaller scale. Substitute room for canal, and speakers with IEMs,

What point are you trying to make?

What point are you trying to make? That the soundstage isn't in the recording? Of course it is, otherwise why would different recordings have different soundstages? Or maybe they don't for you, because your room is dominating the recording.

 

[tmuikku]

Yes, that's we wanna hear, the recording? Also those who made the recording into existence had loudspeaker system and made it sound good to them, right? so thats what we've got, and thank you from my part, it's plenty nice

Come playback time the speakers and room are yours so it doesn't sound exactly the same, as they are different than where the recording was made, but our auditory system is similar to those who made it.

It seems our auditory system has it's part in perception of image, perhaps no surprise, and it ought to be possible for everyone to find out them selves with their own system: Put on mono noise for strong phantom center image. Then, concentrate listening the phantom center, eyes closed. If the phantom center seems big, has kind of a hazy undefined roomy sound to it, then start moving closer to speakers staying centerline, equidistant to both. Try and hear the phantom center collapse in to a small blob and get more definition to it. Conversely, if you think its well defined at the beginning, move further and try to hear if the phantom center image gets less defined in a way. Move back and forth if you don't find it, or if you do then to learn what you perceive.

You could now mark the distance down where you think there is a transition between the two perceptions of image, start listening to music. Moving over the transition closer to speakers you know you'd get more clarity with direct sound as your auditory system provides it. Moving beyond you'd find the more roomy sound. You might be able to put the main listening position at the transition: lean back for relaxed roomy sound or lean forward if you want to zoom in. Some recordings seem to sound better on either side, some nice on both, and sometimes one might prefer relaxed sound, and sometimes want to dive in. Mobile listening position provides advantage, sound changes at will I hope everyone could do this with their setup, if it is due to auditory system then everyone should I think.

 

[Emlin]

Yes, that's we wanna hear, the recording? Also those who made the recording into existence had loudspeaker system and made it sound good to them, right? so thats what we've got, and thank you from my part, it's plenty nice

Come playback time the speakers and room are yours so it doesn't sound exactly the same, as they are different, but our auditory system is similar. It seems our auditory system has it's part in perception of image, perhaps no surprise, and it ought to be possible for everyone to find out them selves with their own system: Put on mono noise for strong phantom center image. Then, concentrate listening the phantom center, eyes closed. If the phantom center seems big, has kind of a hazy undefined roomy sound to it, then start moving closer to speakers stayding centerline, equidistant to both. Try and hear the phantom center collapse to a small blob and get more definition to it. If you think its well defined at the beginning, move further and try to hear if the phantom center image gets less defined in a way. Move back and forth to learn it if you have it happening.

If it happens you could mark the distance down where you think there is a transition between the two perceptions of image. Mpving over the transition closer to speakers you know you'd get more clarity with direct sound as your auditory system provides it. Moving beyond you'd find the more roomy sound. You might be able to put the main listening position at the transition: lean back for relaxed roomy sound or lean forward if you want to zoom in. Some recordings seem to sound better on either side, some nice on both, and sometimes one might prefer relaxed sound, and sometimes want to dive in. Mobile listening position provides advantage.

What you are doing by moving like that is changing the ratio of direct to reflected sound. Quite correct.

 

[Curvature]

What point are you trying to make? That the soundstage isn't in the recording? Of course it is, otherwise why would different recordings have different soundstages? Or maybe they don't for you, because your room is dominating the recording.

Here are my points:

• This thread is about the properties of speakers that have good soundstage. Speakers are only one part of the combination that leads to the perceptual experience we call soundstage.
• Member @Suono wrote "It is sufficient to make a stereo recording and play it back in your system to understand how faithful it is and no particular imagination of the brain is needed. will fully respect what happened. intensity and arrival times at the microphones will reconstruct the stage and spatiality". This is incorrect because physical information is lost due to techniques involved in stereo recording and reproduction. For synthetic sounds, that information is simply not present.
• The lost/missing information is "volumetric". Standard microphones represent only what's happening at a single point in space using some combination of pressure and 1-dimensional velocity. More advanced microphones can represent what's happening at that point in the soundfield more precisely by capturing pressure and velocity along 3-dimensional axes (so three velocities and one pressure are necessary to understand the full picture at that point).
• Two speakers cannot represent volumetric information. What they do in combination with the room, to reproduce a stereo recording, cannot be optimized to match what is happening physically in the recording venue. But it is extremely interesting that room reflections and speaker directivity can, to some extent, replace that lost physical information due to the way our hearing system works and interprets directional sound.
• We have to live with the physical limitations of stereo and not imagine that it is more capable than it is. Better physical representation of the complexity of the soundfield would requires more complex audio systems.
• Within the limits of stereo, and this is the underlying subject of this thread, it is not completely clear what role speaker directivity and the room play. We do not yet have the studies that give a simple, comprehensive model. Work by Griesinger, like @tmuikku and @Duke discussed, has been very helpful getting us this far. And speaker design has not yet moved past work done by Toole, for the most part.