SO ... HOW do we measure soundstage???

[Sal1950]

SoundStage, That was a great PBS TV concert show back when.
It was produced by my home town WTTW PBS station in Chicago.
There were so many great artists presented live over the years.

Soundstage

WTTW's legendary and groundbreaking music series, "Soundstage," returns.

www.pbs.org

 

[Adis]

SoundStage, That was a great PBS TV concert show back when.
It was produced by my home town WTTW PBS station in Chicago.
There were so many great artists presented live over the years.

Soundstage

WTTW's legendary and groundbreaking music series, "Soundstage," returns.

www.pbs.org

Did you measure it?

 

[LevityProject]

I did some subjective testing and found that was able to create a similar tonal balance and soundstage in my IEMs as my Open Back headphones by fine-tuning EQ adjustments toward the ASR harman curve preference. On anything I played in the "summer 2024" spotify mix, I was able to tell exactly what the engineers wanted to accentuate in their mixes.

Of course, I don't know the decisions they made to achieve the results, but I could hear mixes with a level of clarity I didn't have before I joined ASR and dove head-first into the unknown world of Harman curves and good engineering (not engineering for compliance to curves, but for excellently low distortion across the entire frequency spectrum, thus allowing EQ correction to happen worry-free). At any rate, it was an interesting thing to play around with ...

 

[Chromatischism]

It's becoming accepted now that Harman IE 2019 (for IEM's) exaggerates the upper midrange & treble a bit from what most would consider neutral.

 

[AweLoi]

I think that when people claim that they hear a difference in things like soundstage between electronic components it is likely that they have not level matched properly.

This happened to me once. I had a tube preamp (Vincent SA-T8) which had noticable hiss and distortion so I upgraded to an Accuphase C-2150 preamp instead. When I first A-B tested, level matched by ear only, it sounded like the Vincent had a bigger holographic soundstage than the Accuphase, but the Accuphase had no audible hiss or distortion. I was disappointed that the Accuphase wasn´t as holographic as the Vincent, or so I thought.

Just to make sure I took the time and level matched properly using a db meter. It turned out that because the Accuphase had much lower distortion and background noise compared to the Vincent, it felt like the volume was matched, but in reality the Accuphase was at a significantly lower volume level. It was just so clean sounding that it sounded great at lower listenting levels compared to the Vincent so it felt like the volume was higher than it really was. When I cranked up the level to match the Vincent the big holographic soundstage was just as good on the Accuphase. It was a volume thing, not a preamp thing. I wonder how many of the Youtube reviewers who actually level match properly?

 

[Gorgonzola]

I think that when people claim that they hear a difference in things like soundstage between electronic components it is likely that they have not level matched properly.

Careful level matching on doubt will make various problems disappear.

There has been a gratifying amount of discussion in this threat. In the end I remain pretty convinced that 'soundstage', (i.e. the perceived width, and (sometimes) depth and height of the presentation), is entirely the product of the recording, speaker positioning, and possibly speaker dispersion, but not affected by properly functioning electronic components.

 

[ahofer]

I agree that level matching vies for #1 (with unintentionally biased/focused listening).

I’ve always had a theory about turntables, however: The microphonic/sensitive aspect of the needle in the groove makes the listening experience more like a performance in a very small venue - movement in the room affects it, so you have the same sense of being ‘trapped’ for something special as if someone was playing for you. That all goes out the window with symphonic music or arena rock, but with vocal& guitar, or chamber music, it can be pretty effective.

 

[Sal1950]

In the end I remain pretty convinced that 'soundstage', (i.e. the perceived width, and (sometimes) depth and height of the presentation), is entirely the product of the recording, speaker positioning, and possibly speaker dispersion, but not affected by properly functioning electronic components.

You left out the obvious, listened position. Everytime he moves his head or body things have changed, how can you ever hope for accurate repeatable subjective impressions?

That all goes out the window with symphonic music or arena rock, but with vocal& guitar, or chamber music, it can be pretty effective.

Most all comparisons of reproduced soundstage go out the window with vinyl.
Everything from the needles design and alignment, tonearm shape and design, just about everything can have an effect on channel information retrieval.

 

[Tim Link]

After reading through this discussion I decided to turn off my crosstalk reduction scheme and have a listen in normal 2 speaker mode for a while. I'm very sympathetic to Justdafactsmaam's perspective, because I really have found crosstalk reduction to work wonders on many recordings. But I'm also sympathetic to what goat76 and Suono are saying. Was it on this thread that somebody distinguished dual channel recordings from stereo? I think that's an important distinction. Stereo does not mean any specific number of channels, except that you do need at least two. So dual channel recordings can be stereo, but they aren't necessarily. If they're not, they may not sound good with crosstalk reduction. If they are, I would posit that crosstalk reduction is generally an enhancement. Crosstalk is never good for real stereophonic effects on 2 channels. It doesn't help at all. It gets in the way to some degree, but as Suono and others have made clear, you can get beautiful results that reveal a sense of 3D space in a well setup room. Properly controlled room reflections can be a real benefit. With crosstalk reduction you don't need any helping reflections, although I'll bet they might still be a pleasant enhancement if they are delayed and attenuated adequately. I will contend that it's ultimately better with crosstalk reduction - for stereo, which means 3D or solid sound with a sense of depth and volume. Real stereo recordings will never have anything totally hard panned to one channel or the other. The closest thing to that might be if a fly buzzes right next to one of the microphones.

As for my impressions of my system returned to 2 channel arrangement with no crosstalk reduction, it sounds really nice. I notice the dip in response on center panned sounds sometimes, but the phantom center is very solid and present, which is surprising because my listening triangle is quite wide. I'm tempted to say this is the best phantom center I've ever had in any of my spaces! I don't know if I've ever heard a soundstage this wide with such a solid center from standard 2channel. My speakers are about twice as far apart from each other as I am back from the plane they are on. I'd move them closer together but they're huge corner horn speakers so that's not practical, and without crosstalk reduction the tweeters need to be with the rest of the drivers. Still, I'm getting perceptions on some recordings all the way out to 180 degrees wide, and on a few things go behind my head. I can pick up ambient cues that give a sense of space and depth in the recordings that have them, but it's a different presentation, not as captivating as with crosstalk reduction, but still good. Sounds that are panned wide have better clarity and coherence than before. Makes sense to me, because they are coming from where the speakers are. I can see why people are generally very happy with just 2 channels and no crosstalk reduction. I'd say that crosstalk reduction takes stereo up a notch, it's similar to going from mono to stereo. In mono you can still hear ambient effects, but they just don't flesh out as well into a sense of real space. Dual channel stereo can do much better, and dual channel stereo with crosstalk reduction has even greater potential. I should add that I've never heard something similar from multi-channel recordings as to what happens with crosstalk reduced 2 channel, but that could just be how the recordings were made and the setups I had to listen on.