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Soundstage and Electronics?

Foxenfurter

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The first stand-alone DAC that I owned was an Audio Alchemy DAC-in-the-box. I was immensely pleased with this and decided to compare it to my old and free technics record deck, I was expecting to laugh at the awful sound coming from the record deck. Instead I was shocked at how massive the virtual soundstage was when playing vinyl when compared to playing CD through the DITB.

Several years later I replaced this DAC with an Audio Note DAC largely on the basis of it having a much bigger Soundstage. I know - uncontrolled listening conditions. I had forgotten all this, until yesterday I ended up watching some youtube reviews of DACS and heard all these "gurus" blathering on about soundstage and how this DAC had lots and this (cheaper one) had less.

So my question is this, why do some electronics apparently deliver a bigger (wider, taller, deeper) virtual soundstage then others? Is a bigger soundstage a characteristic of distortion e.g. tube coloration or better engineering. Are there any measurements which would be a better predictor of whether a component is likely to deliver a wider soundstage?

Clarifications
  • My listening experience when changing electronics has only been that some components lock the image between the speakers and with others it appears to be wider than the speakers, this is what I am referring to.
  • I haven't heard a significant difference in soundstage width in DACS that I have purchased in the last 10 years, so I suspect that the older ones may have been broken in this respect.
  • After watching those knobs on youtube, really makes me appreciate measurements.
  • I don't really know what I am talking about ;)
 

M00ndancer

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There is a significant risk that the difference can be different masters. All depending on the music played. A lot of masters are prone to the "loudness wars". The source I E the master recording plays a big part in how the soundstage and other things sounds. So in a worst case scenario you'll have a good mastered vinyl and bad mastered CD.

But that's just my take on the subject. (Bias also rears its ugly head every time we compare things)
 
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Foxenfurter

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Masters definitely make a difference, but I have previously played a whole stack of CDs through a very cheap (20 GBP) DVD player used as a transport via its analogue outs and through an external DAC and noticed this effect consistently (analogue outs sounding worse).

Conversely I did the same thing using a different DVD player ( I went through a lot of them as they kept adding features) and this one was very similar to the DAC. I would have kept using that player to be honest but it made a really loud "bong" pretty upset by that.

Webninja - I agree with what you are saying, but it doesn't really answer my question.

Let's say a DAC is not capable of reproducing the soundstage on a recording what measurements or problems might cause that? Is it just cross-feed or is something else at play. Similarly if a DAC is over-emphasising the soundstage (like a spatializer plugin) what factors are at play.
 

pozz

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Soundstage or imaging is the result of two factors: amplitude and timing. For timing to be different, it can only be in the negative direction, i.e., the DAC has to malfunction severely. That leaves amplitude, where a basic difference in output between DACs, one putting out more voltage than the other, will account for all reports of something being wider, bigger and so on (because it's louder). This is assuming that everything else about the comparison is controlled and kept the same, as much as possible.

But most of the reported differences described by "reviewers" are due to uncontrolled listening circumstances across different gear, different levels, listening sessions and music. Few of them take care to isolate specifics in their listening sessions. So all in all there is no basis for their comments.
 
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MakeMineVinyl

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For soundstage tp be affected, a DAC is going to have to have some gross defect, and chances are you'd hear other symptoms too.
 

krabapple

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The online blather about 'soundstaging' of a DAC that you read, is nonsense.

Your LPs could have different 'soundstaging' than your CDs because of much greater crosstalk between channels. Which is actually a flaw. Digital has essentially zero. LPs/cart systems have lots, by comparison.

And the LP mastering too, is almost certainly different from whatever CD version you have. You basically aren't comparing apples to apples.
 

phoenixdogfan

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"Soundstaging" results from inter-aural timing differences in the transducers (recording and playback), not the electronics.
 

pozz

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Similarly if a DAC is over-emphasising the soundstage (like a spatializer plugin) what factors are at play.
You're asking about how those plug-ins work?

There's a bunch of different varieties, but it's still just amplitude and timing manipulation, usually frequency-specific.
"Soundstaging" results from inter-aural timing differences in the transducers, not the electronics.
This is kind of misleading. ITD relates to the listener, not speakers, headphones or electronic devices. And "soundstage" or imaging is the result of both interaural time difference (ITD) and interaural level difference (ILD).

Edit: ITD and ILD are psychoacoustic terms describing the variation in the time and level of sounds in one ear vs. another. They also are frequency-specific. For example, vertical localization (hearing how high or low something is relative to you) or back-to-front localization (hearing if something is ahead or behind you) is largely due to frequency-specific variations in the kHz range.
 
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MakeMineVinyl

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Similarly if a DAC is over-emphasising the soundstage (like a spatializer plugin) what factors are at play.

"3D" plug-ins like like Panorama - https://wavearts.com/products/plugins/panorama-6/ - are something I use myself. These use head-related transfer functions (HRTF) to make sounds routed to the plugin appear to come from anywhere in space. They're used in gaming and music and are very effective. These still utilize phase, EQ and intensity differences to produce their effect. Generally, they're used with a single track such as a helicopter sound to make it swirl around the room; they're not used on overall stereo sound sources.
 
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Foxenfurter

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Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Pozz your answer regarding broken DACs is probably accurate, and is certainly consistent with my experience.
 
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