Properties of speakers that creates a large and precise soundstage

[Digby]

I also tried listening to that track holding two thick pillows about 10 centimeters from the ears on each side of the head to prevent side reflections, and I heard the drumbeat from exactly the same position at about 90 degrees from the right side, so it shouldn't have much to do with the room acoustics.

Did you close the curtains first or are the neighbours used to your shenanigans by now?

 

[goat76]

Did you close the curtains first or are the neighbours used to your shenanigans by now?

I have blinds on my windows.

 

[sigbergaudio]

I can clearly hear the first drumbeat about 90 degrees on the right side of me, and after that it pans over the stereo field over to the left side of me.

It’s simply a stereo-phase trick in a similar way as q-sounds. This is easy to hear, just put your ear close to the left speaker and you will hear that the first drumbeat is about as loud in the left speaker as it is in the right speaker, even if the sound appears 90 degrees to the right.

No noe is arguing that it is magic?

I also tried listening to that track holding two thick pillows about 10 centimeters from the ears on each side of the head to prevent side reflections, and I heard the drumbeat from exactly the same position at about 90 degrees from the right side, so it shouldn't have much to do with the room acoustics.

How far to the left/right it goes changes from room to room.

 

[gnarly]

To be fair the link, while interesting is not a definition. A definition is something short enough to fit in a dictionary and describes what soundstage is (and perhaps, is not). Let me make a rough attempt at a definition:

Thx for your soundstage definition!

I really like short definitions, that get down to roots /prime factors.
Here's my attempt(s)



Imaging. The property of two or more sound sources, to create an apparent visual image apart from the sources, of where the sound originates from in a point in space.
Sources can include multiple speakers, their diffractions, and multiple reflected paths from the speakers (if paths integrate as described below.)

Soundstage. A set of images, such that multiple apparent visual images, simultaneously originate from perceived different points in space.

Both Imaging and Soundstage rely on the multiple sources' outputs arriving together at the listeners ear, within a time frame that integrates their perception as arriving as the same time.
Thus, they are a unified vector arrival, and they both appear as sound coming from somewhere 'over there'..


Envelopment. The property of Imaging and Spacious, but expanded to include reflected sound paths arriving later than the time frame that integrates them into being perceived as arriving at the same time.
Adding this property can make the sound also appear as coming from 'all around', in addition to 'over there'.


I know many folks have said the same or similar as above...i just thought I'd take a stab at "if it were up to me"
Hopefully not a pure waste of your time (and mine haha)

 

[goat76]

No noe is arguing that it is magic?

No, I never said you or anyone else believe it got anything to do with magic. But some people here seem to think it got something to do with the acoustic of the room, which is not the case.

How far to the left/right it goes changes from room to room.

I do think most speakers will be able to reproduce that sound effect pretty much equal as long as the room is not extremely reverberant to the degree that the stereo effect get severely masked. And then we have that critical distance thing that got mentioned earlier, and that will also affect how well that stereo effect will be heard.

 

[sigbergaudio]

No, I never said you or anyone else believe it got anything to do with magic. But some people here seem to think it got something to do with the acoustic of the room, which is not the case.

The room isn't the source of the effect, but the room (and the placement of the speakers and yourself) certainly affects how these type of effects are perceived by the listener.

I do think most speakers will be able to reproduce that sound effect pretty much equal as long as the room is not extremely reverberant to the degree that the stereo effect get severely masked. And then we have that critical distance thing that got mentioned earlier, and that will also affect how well that stereo effect will be heard.

Size, reverb, distance to side walls, listeners position.. I've tried this track in many rooms, I've also tried it before/after treatment. It's changes the effect significantly.

 

[Cote Dazur]

If conventional stereo could do all these things you are saying than I am yet to see such system

There is no if, well set up speakers and adequate seating position, will do all those things with any decent recording and any decent speakers. It is not even difficult.

I have some 26 speakers just to generate the ambiance for stereo.

Not sure how you got convinced you needed 26 speakers to listen to stereo recordings. I know you are far from the only one, particularly at ASR, many seem convince they can do better with more speakers.
To me, all you have to do, to enjoy great sound stage and imaging is create a 2 speakers set up. To each his own and I truly wish you enjoy you set up a lot, as I can not even start to imagine how much work is needed, even assisted by software and DSP, to make it all work. No doubt, speaker manufacturers wet dream.

My understanding is soundstage is a the result of the mind recreating the sound scene

You got that part right, the mind is what make you hear what you hear.
Measuring soundstage and imaging is very hard, maybe even impossible, but the brain can give it to you, clear as day, pretty much effortlessly in the proper stereo set up.

 

[goat76]

The room isn't the source of the effect, but the room (and the placement of the speakers and yourself) certainly affects how these type of effects are perceived by the listener.

A non-optimized placement of the speakers and the listener position will of course affect all stereo effects and not just the specific one we are discussing right now.

Size, reverb, distance to side walls, listeners position.. I've tried this track in many rooms, I've also tried it before/after treatment. It's changes the effect significantly.

The reason for the change in the effect between the different rooms was most likely that some of those setups were not as well-optimized for stereo reproduction.

 

[sigbergaudio]

A non-optimized placement of the speakers and the listener position will of course affect all stereo effects and not just the specific one we are discussing right now.


The reason for the change in the effect between the different rooms was most likely that some of those setups were not as well-optimized for stereo reproduction.

Well, this (now talking about perception of soundstage in general, not this song specifically) also changes from speaker to speaker in the same room, so then all speakers are also not well-optmized for stereo reproduction. Which I guess may be the case.

 

[Bugal1998]

I could never hear sound going beyond the walls no matter how good the system was.

I have to listen in total darkness or eyes closed for that to happen. When I turn the lights on it can be surprising to see a ceiling or wall closer than where there was a sense of sound. With the lights on I can never get over my visual bias.

Anywaaaay, back to the topic in hand. I have to say I haven't heard 'soundstage' anywhere near as much as some others have (things inside their heads, behind the front wall and so on),

For me, sensation of sound in my ears or inside my head (some call it headphone effect I guess) only happened in a space with a great excess of absorption. Others have reported the sensation with very narrow dispersion speakers.

Regarding sound beyond walls see my comment above.

Unless you are demoing recordings like QSound It is not possible with conventional stereo.

Is there even such a thing as "conventional stereo"? I have no idea what that would mean. Based on one of your earlier posts you may have in mind a generic stereo mic with no spacing to capture the inter aural delay/phase relationship... But I wouldn't call such a simplistic approach "conventional", I'd call it ineffective.

There are so many different microphone types and recording configurations that capture phase/delay information that can recreate a spacious sound during 2-channel playback, oftentimes including more than just two microphones. However, just because it takes expertise and creativity to capture a compelling stereo soundfield doesn't mean it's a trick or somehow not stereo. Artists and engineers finding ways to maximize the capabilites of the playback system (including various electronic processing) is part of the creative process and it increases the pleasure of listening. Just because it takes creativity doesn't somehow make the result less enjoyable.

There's a stereophile test CD that captures the same scene with different microphone setups. In a highly overdamped room, I would get a sense of depth, sounds behind me, and the sensation of the sound nearly brushing my left ear when they walked back-to-front past the microphone, but it was never wider than the speakers. In a reflective room, there was depth, and the sound was wider than the speakers, but I didn't get the illusion of sound behind me or brushing past my ear. So it seems to me to be very much dependent on the room; unless we listen outside, in anechoic chambers, or highly overdmped spaces, the room is possibly the greatest factor in creating or destroying certain illusions, at least once some minimum level of competently designed speakers are in use.

I wonder if people already started to imagine the sound scene rather than determining based on what they hear.

There are absolutely aspects of truth to this for me. For example, see my earlier comments about 'finding my seat in the audience'.

When I heard sound behind me using the stereophile CD I suspect there was enough ambiguity in the soundfield (due to the excess absorption hiding room cues) that knowing the sound was coming from the back was enough information to let me interpret the sound as coming from the back as well; but once it happened, the sensation was real. Just like some optical illusions can let you see two entirely different pictures depending on what you focus on, having a mental predisposition can help the perception of the soundfield as a real space as well.

Lastly, no matter what I try, I can never get the same sensation of sound behind me on the stereophile CD in the livelier room; the room cues are just too strong telling me the sound is coming from the front to let the perception of sound behind me materialize. It's not just the speakers, the room and setup matters, too.

 

[MattHooper]

If large and precise soundstage means spacious/enveloping and sharp imaging, they contradict to a large degree. You can't have 100% of both. But you can achieve a good combination by attenuation early arriving reflections and introduce late arrival lateral diffuse energy. Should be temporal diffusion, so not polys.

Not that you aren't technically correct in terms of an optimal strategy. But, as I mentioned, I've managed a satisfying combination of both spaciousness and precise imaging. I sit pretty close to my speakers for envelopment, cut down on sidewall reflections, and use a poly diffusor behind the speakers which gives back image density and focus. The result is a huge soundstage, lots of envelopment, but precise imaging.

I had an audio reviewer friend, who is quite used to hearing plenty of different sound systems, listen to the set up and his first reaction was a bit of shock. He asked "how did you DO that?"

Some speakers sound larger than others and there's a good reason for that. It's very much related to the crossover area and directivity.

I see the idea of "sounding larger" in two ways. One is being able to cast a large soundstage. Even my little Spendor S3/5s can cast an enormous soundstage. But then there is the sense of the size and weight of the sonic images themselves. On some speakers, instruments just sound bigger, more life-sized and corporeal, than on others. I'm tempted to ask a specific question about why certain speakers sound that way, but it would probably go off topic.

 

[Suono]

it is useless to make conjectures, the listening rooms influence the final result, even more true that there are speakers that have more resolution and return more spatial information taken up by the microphones in the sound field

 

[Bugal1998]

But some people here seem to think it got something to do with the acoustic of the room, which is not the case.

If it's QSound or a similar treatment, it's encoded in the track and tends to be much more consistent room to room than some other soundstage/envelopment effects which can appear/dissappear entirely based on the room.

For example, I couldn't get a certain stereophile track to extend beyond the speakers with excess absobtion, but with less absoprtion the sound extended well beyond the speakers. It just depends on how the effect is created.

 

[MattHooper]

You got that part right, the mind is what make you hear what you hear.
Measuring soundstage and imaging is very hard, maybe even impossible, but the brain can give it to you, clear as day, pretty much effortlessly in the proper stereo set up.

I have to listen in total darkness or eyes closed for that to happen. When I turn the lights on it can be surprising to see a ceiling or wall closer than where there was a sense of sound. With the lights on I can never get over my visual bias.

The mind is an amazing thing. Years ago in my listening room, between more heroic speaker purchases, I was making due with my wife's old pair of Thiel 02 speakers (picked out for her in the 80s by her audiophile brother). Great sounding modest sized stand mounted two-ways. I still have them. But they came with these tiny stands, which held the speakers well below ear level, basically just a few inches from the floor but angled up toward the listener somewhat.

The effect, whether it was pure visual bias, acoustics, or some combo, was that the sound seemed lower to the ground than the average set up.

But one night I tried closing my eyes and I started trying to imagine what I was actually listening to tall floor standing speakers. As I pictured taller speakers and where the sound would be, remarkably I "heard" the soundstage and sonic images from the Thiels slowly glide upward until it now sounded like the singers were standing, the instruments projected by taller floor standing speakers. It was really amazing to experience.

I often play these mind games when evaluating loudspeakers, because it's so easy to be influenced by the visuals. I close my eyes and first ask "what does this actually sound like? What type of speaker would I imagine just from the sound?" Sometimes a big, super expensive speaker at a show will sound like it may as well have been a small bookshelf speaker. Often when I encounter something that should sound impressive, and I close my eyes and ask "could I imagine this to be a much cheaper, smaller speaker?" ...if I can, that to me is a red flag. If the sound is so good, eyes closed, that I struggle to imagine it was coming from a smaller, or crappy speaker, and it still sounds fantastic or "believable," that consistency between eyes closed and eyes open is a better sign. (For me..)

 

[Pearljam5000]

Are there songs with huge soundstage that could be used to test speakers ?

 

[fpitas]

Are there songs with huge soundstage that could be used to test speakers ?

Check out post #107.

 

[fpitas]

Are there songs with huge soundstage that could be used to test speakers ?

Consensual Worlds is an extreme example, but Delerium from the Semantic Spaces and Karma albums is a gold mine of spatial effects.

 

[Duke]

Here is how to find it: setup your speakers like 2m / 6ft apart, put white noise playing, same exact signal on both speakers for maximally strong phantom center. Click mono button on your receiver if there is one. Now, start from opposite side of your room, concentrate listening how big / sharp the noise seems to be between speakers and start slowly walking closer to the speakers staying equidistant from each. There should be a distance where perception of the phantom center changes, it gets smaller and sharply localized and rest of the room could sound almost muted, eerie feeling in a way. When this happens, you've just passed your audible critical distance. If you didn't hear it, try adjusting positioning of the speakers, toe-in. It should be almost on-off kind of change in perception.

I haven't tried this experiment exactly as you describe, but I have experimented with moving the speakers further out from the wall/closer to the listening position while keeping the listening position stationary. This was with bipolar and dipolar speakers, and my thought process was focused on "changing the time delay of the first reflection of the backwave energy". BUT what was ALSO happening was, the speakers were getting closer to me. So it was BOTH (beneficial) effects happening simultaneously. I had NOT appreciated the significance of DECREASING the distance between listener and speakers in that context until YOUR post. So THANK YOU very much!

Anecdotally, and again this was with bi-directional speakers, two feet from the wall gave poor clarity and a shallow soundstage (maybe four feet deep). Four feet from the wall (and therefore two feet closer to the listener) gave good clarity and a soundstage about eight feet deep. Six feet from the wall (now four feet closer to the listener) and the clarity further improved, but the biggest change was in the soundstage depth. It was now as deep as the recording, so forty feet or whatever depending on the recording.

My hypothesis is that the backwave delay arising from six feet distance to the wall, combined with the reduced distance between listener and speakers (presumably putting the listener within the "audible critical distance" you describe), resulted in the spatial cues on the recording becoming perceptually dominant.

In both cases the speakers were fairly directional, the dipoles being line-source-approximating faceted-curved electrostats with a horizontal pattern width of 90 degrees. The bipoles used a 10" midwoofer and a constant-directivity waveguide-style horn, with the horizontal pattern width being 90 degrees from the crossover region (ballpark 1.4 kHz) on up.

 

[audiofooled]

Are there songs with huge soundstage that could be used to test speakers ?

 

[test1223]

Are there songs with huge soundstage that could be used to test speakers ?

Check out post #107.

I think we first have to specify the dimensions of big height, width, depth or all three. As already mentioned there are some songs which extent the horizontal dimension like on the Roger Waters Album Amused to Death.