Where in the data can we see qualities like 'soundstage' or 'detail retrieval'

[ShadowFiend]

Yes, I know the absolute limit is 80Hz or even 60Hz but it is very dependent on type of signal. Transient signal is much easier to locate, but in the music with less transient it is more difficult to locate the sound at that low frequency. So I use the more lenient 150Hz to demonstrate the point.

 

[SIY]

This leads me to imagine that there might be an undiscovered layer of measurements or phenomena that eludes our current understanding.

Because of the data that are not conventionally and trivially explainable, like... ummm... errrr..... uhhhhh...

That said, I would not be surprised if there's layers of measurements that elude your understanding.

 

[SIY]

it’s fascinating that our perception of heat and cold doesn’t always align with what the instruments tell us.

Except... they absolutely do.

 

[Verig]

Thanks. It all sounds so simple!

So looking at the chart in static v3's post above and applying it to what was traditionally perceived as a 'warmer' sounding valve amp vs a 'clinical' sounding amp such as the Audiolab 6000, that would be explained by the valve amp having a boosted low frequency response (presumably a feature of the valve's) vs the Audiolab's flatter, more neutral response?

As shown, tube amps may do some really weird stuff. I like them a lot (but not all the time and not my main set) but don't try to think about any magical properties, or compare them to normal amps, they're just very faulty in a nice way. Best with shadowy room and vine, measuring not allowed tonight.

I second the advice playing around with an EQ. Even a simple one will do fine.

You can try different variations like cutting all bass below 80Hz 6dB. Depending on your setup and room it may be that you still have quite a kick there, perhaps even more defined than before - room may add extremely high peaks.
Cut 100-300Hz range 3dB. Perhaps you suddenly hear things more clear.
Cut everything above 12kHz completely, see how little that matters to the music.
If you like modern metal etc. music with lots of distortion see what happens if you cut 4-5kHz, even 2dB should do it, smoother now?
Want some relaxing warmth, cut 7-8kHz 3dB and see if you feel more relaxed.
Also, you can try to "find" the singer. Play some Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen and try to bring them forward or send to back.

Of course the effect is tied to how your set plays now and what your room does. But still, about like this. Take some time. Start with 6dB so you hear what you're touching clearly. Then move to 3dB for still clear but more subtle. When you think you got it try 0,5-1dB. In the right place even small difference is heard. Especially if you hit bad room reflection area with that 0,5 it may feel quite a bit more.
This will give you most you need to compare graphs meaningfully around here.

 

[Verig]

@corumuk What Jim said: "What is IMO more important (and more audible) is the frequency balance of the ARC amp; it is deficient in the treble from 3.5K onward, resulting in a sound that some would call "warm" or having more "presence"."

As I wrote if you want to tame some hot guitar or need just a bit more relaxed presentation you want to touch areas above 3kHz.
When you tip the whole range you won't hear it so clearly as with more local adjustment (high Q in EQ speak) and can't so easily pinpoint why it sounds nicer. One more thing is that taking away from somewhere does not do only that - it will perceptibly raise the other areas if you think about the whole. This is why you always need to check if you really need to boost an area or would it be possible to fix some other part to lower level. If you have measurements it's easy but when you try to go by ear you may end up with total mess unless you train a bit first. Like not lowering the bad part but raising perfectly good part to mask the error resulting in two errors.

 

[corumuk]

On https://www.spinorama.org/ you can find a PEQ preset which corrects the Emit 10's anechoic response:

Measurements for speaker Dynaudio Emit M10

www.spinorama.org

(Go to the Data & EQ tab)

You can load that into Foobar using the free Mathaudio Headphone EQ plugin.

View attachment 372443
(left: Stock, right: EQed)

Thanks, does this look right?

As an aside, the mathaudio window is tiny on a 55" 4k when viewing from the sofa, have to get up and walk over to the screen to read it.
All mathaudio settings are default, have just 'imported' the settings from a txt file.

 

[staticV3]

Thanks, does this look right?

Yup!

 

[corumuk]

Thanks. A/B'ing with the bypass toggle there is definitely an audible difference, most notably a taming of the top end. Not that I would have described them as bright before.
Will listen for a few days and see how I get on.

 

[goat76]

Talking about "soundstage", one has to realise first that in the 99.99% of the recordings there is no true soundstage information to reconstruct except binaural recordings to be listened to on headphones, maybe.

That depends on the type of music you usually listen to, there are a lot of recordings that contain a true soundstage, or partially a true soundstage.
The main sound of most classical music recordings is usually mostly based on the room sound and the ensemble, even if spot mics are used which are often panned in a way that keeps the actual placement of those instruments true to the placement of the true soundstage. Similarly, most recordings of jazz music do it the same way even if the spot mics may be more prominent in the mix and are more of a dominant factor of where the instruments are panned in the mix, and the stereo pickup of the room is there to add a three-dimensional space of width and depth around the instruments.

There are recordings of all types of genres that still use a large portion of the picked-up sound of a real room, making up the main part of the soundstage in the recordings.

Then, the so-called "3D-soundstage" is due to 3 different effects: the first one is the width which is of course due to the stereo Left-Right balance of sounds. it is actually a true effect and the smaller and more coherent the midrange-tweeter section of the loudspeakers the better.

It seems like you are completely focused on that the loudspeakers are the only ones meant to create the soundstage with the help of your listening room, and with that view, I can understand what you mean when you say that the only "true effect" comes from the left and right balance between the two loudspeakers. But for me and many others, the main information of the soundstage is part of the recording itself, and the actual recording can contain depth and distance that are equally true information as the width in the recordings.

The second one is the height and it is purely due to psychoacoustics, our brain tends to locate low frequencies in a lower position and high frequencies in a higher position on the scene, of course no real height information can be reproduced by amplifiers or speakers.

Some limited height information can be had with recordings made with a pair of microphones in a stereo configuration when they manage to pick up the three-dimensional space in front and between them. If two recorded objects are placed at different heights between the microphones in such circumstances, it's sometimes possible to hear the sound object coming from positions at different heights. I think I heard this in a recording of a small choir where the singers were placed at different heights in two rows, but I don't remember what recording it was.

The third one is the depth and it is purely due to psychoacoustics, our brain tends to locate louder sounds upfront and weaker sounds in the background, of course no real depth information can be reproduced by amplifiers or speakers.

The real depth of a space can be recorded, and loudspeakers driven by amplifiers can be used to reproduce that depth that is on the recording, which in many cases can be a pretty accurate representation/projection of the space that was recorded. I can't see why the depth information would be considered less real than anything else in the recording.

 

[RayDunzl]

Then, the so-called "3D-soundstage" is due to 3 different effects: the first one is the width which is of course due to the stereo Left-Right balance of sounds.

Phase, or a slight delay of a sound between the two channels, is even more effective (in my experience) at positioning a sound than volume panning..

 

[kemmler3D]

What's interesting is that these concepts are not considered mysterious at all in the studio / production world.

For example, here are some quick tips for the budding producer to create a soundstage in their mix: https://www.masteringthemix.com/blogs/learn/8-tips-for-creating-depth-and-height-in-the-mix ... there are similar articles all over the place.

If you consider that these virtual tweaks often have analogues in speaker characteristics, it's not hard to get a grip on how subjective perception of soundstage might vary from speaker to speaker.

 

[AuricGoldfinger]

I tried to understand what was implied by “soundstage” when rtings was evaluating mono bluetooth speakers, and I realized it was only a fluff term in that context.

 

[kemmler3D]

I tried to understand what was implied by “soundstage” when rtings was evaluating mono bluetooth speakers, and I realized it was only a fluff term in that context.

I don't know if they still do it this way, but I think they were measuring "soundstage" in headphones via acoustic crosstalk, which to me seemed pretty bizarre, although maybe not entirely off-base.

 

[Duke]

... for me and many others, the main information of the soundstage is part of the recording itself, and the actual recording can contain depth and distance that are equally true information as the width in the recordings...

The real depth of a space can be recorded, and loudspeakers driven by amplifiers can be used to reproduce that depth that is on the recording, which in many cases can be a pretty accurate representation/projection of the space that was recorded. I can't see why the depth information would be considered less real than anything else in the recording.

I agree with this paradigm, and imo one role of the loudspeakers (and one which includes their interaction with the room) is to present the "sense of space" on the recording effectively enough that it is perceptually dominant, rather than the "small room signature" of the playback room being perceptually dominant.

 

[Koeitje]

Detail retrieval is just frequency response:
View attachment 372263

Soundstage is crosstalk.

Soundstage probably also has to do with the width of the radiation pattern for a loudspeaker. More reflected sound makes it sound wider (but perhaps at the cost of the ability to precisely pin an instrument's location).

But as others say above: the recording is probably the most important aspect.

 

[staticV3]

Soundstage probably also has to do with the width of the radiation pattern for a loudspeaker. More reflected sound makes it sound wider (but perhaps at the cost of the ability to precisely pin an instrument's location).

But as others say above: the recording is probably the most important aspect.

Agreed, but keep in mind OP's original question:

So with regard to amplifiers in particular, where in the data and charts do we see whether a particular bit of kit has these qualities

 

[SIY]

keep in mind OP's original question

The question was based on a false premise, so it was helpful to review the things that DO affect soundstage. "Detail retrieval" is a marketing term, of course.

 

[goat76]

I agree with this paradigm, and imo one role of the loudspeakers (and one which includes their interaction with the room) is to present the "sense of space" on the recording effectively enough that it is perceptually dominant, rather than the "small room signature" of the playback room being perceptually dominant.

It seems like some people are a bit "stuck"* in thinking that the physical dimension of the listening room and the loudspeakers placed in that room is all there is for creating the soundstage, maybe they have never had the opportunity to listen to a system set up in a way that the recorded information is the perceptually dominant thing over the "small room signature" interference that their listening environment creates, which otherwise overshadows the recorded room information and the extension of depth that can go way deeper than the wall boundaries of the listening room.

As most of this has to do with the room information on the actual recording, there are a lot of things that are left to get right if that information will reach our ears more clearly. The loudspeakers must be positioned so that the listening environment interferes less destructively, the listening positioning in the room and a shorter distance to the loudspeakers will help to increase the direct sound ratio, and the reflections from the listening room could be tamed to increase the amount of direct sound further.

But beyond that, I also think that the choice of loudspeakers can affect the perception of the recorded soundstage, not that they should create something on their own (at least not from a pure reproduction point-of-view), but they should, in the best way possible, be able to reveal the actual information on the recording without too much destructive interference on their own. As I believe the room sound is part of the "smaller and more sensitive" information on the recordings, I think good matching in certain frequency areas between the two loudspeakers in a stereo pair can be of importance among other things as low distortion, not having the crossover points in the wrong places and that the drivers play in a time-wise unified way (which is probably the reason why point-source speakers are considered great when it comes to the soundstage).



* There is of course a completely different view on the matter. Some people are more into creating the sensation of "the musicians are here in my listening room" instead of the "I'm there where the recording took place" kind of sensation, and there are speakers that are made in ways to fully take advantage of the reflections of the listener's environment, like back-firing dipole speakers and different kind of ortho-acoustic speakers. Nothing wrong with that view as long as that rocks someone's boat.

 

[Roland68]

It seems like some people are a bit "stuck"* in thinking that the physical dimension of the listening room and the loudspeakers placed in that room is all there is for creating the soundstage, maybe they have never had the opportunity to listen to a system set up in a way that the recorded information is the perceptually dominant thing over the "small room signature" interference that their listening environment creates, which otherwise overshadows the recorded room information and the extension of depth that can go way deeper than the wall boundaries of the listening room.

As most of this has to do with the room information on the actual recording, there are a lot of things that are left to get right if that information will reach our ears more clearly. The loudspeakers must be positioned so that the listening environment interferes less destructively, the listening positioning in the room and a shorter distance to the loudspeakers will help to increase the direct sound ratio, and the reflections from the listening room could be tamed to increase the amount of direct sound further.

But beyond that, I also think that the choice of loudspeakers can affect the perception of the recorded soundstage, not that they should create something on their own (at least not from a pure reproduction point-of-view), but they should, in the best way possible, be able to reveal the actual information on the recording without too much destructive interference on their own. As I believe the room sound is part of the "smaller and more sensitive" information on the recordings, I think good matching in certain frequency areas between the two loudspeakers in a stereo pair can be of importance among other things as low distortion, not having the crossover points in the wrong places and that the drivers play in a time-wise unified way (which is probably the reason why point-source speakers are considered great when it comes to the soundstage).



* There is of course a completely different view on the matter. Some people are more into creating the sensation of "the musicians are here in my listening room" instead of the "I'm there where the recording took place" kind of sensation, and there are speakers that are made in ways to fully take advantage of the reflections of the listener's environment, like back-firing dipole speakers and different kind of ortho-acoustic speakers. Nothing wrong with that view as long as that rocks someone's boat.

The Linn system at this year's High End in Munich was one of the best I've heard in the last 35 years in terms of imaging, sound stage, depth and height.
Everything was just right in recordings that I knew. I've only heard that with a few systems so far, regardless of whether they were significantly more expensive or cheaper.
The size of the speaker/point sound source has not struck me as a decisive criterion so far.

 

[goat76]

The Linn system at this year's High End in Munich was one of the best I've heard in the last 35 years in terms of imaging, sound stage, depth and height.
Everything was just right in recordings that I knew. I've only heard that with a few systems so far, regardless of whether they were significantly more expensive or cheaper.
The size of the speaker/point sound source has not struck me as a decisive criterion so far.

View attachment 372933

I missed the opportunity to listen to Linn's new flagship system at my local store on Wednesday last week, but it's not a system in my price class anyway and I'm quite happy with my "cheap" Linn Akurate DSM and ATC speakers. It's probably a good idea to stay away from listening to the best Linn has to offer!