Don’t know how it was recorded but just listened to the 31:32 track of Rare Earth “Get Ready” from the 20th Century Masters The Millennium Collection”. Really a great sonic picture that really got me moving. Felt like I was part of the crowd.
Is soundstage a bit overrated? I have yet to hear a system where the lead singer is always dead in the middle, instead he / she tend to shift a bit around. Might be my hearing...=)
Well, seems like the placement of speakers have a huge impact on soundstage. I am currently forced to have my speakers right on the wall because of small children in the house. =)
If I go to see an on stage or club presentation of music I want the reproduction at home to replicate as much as possible what I heard from my perspective of being in the audience. It includes at a minimum the accurate positioning of the musicians. Then again with most music I’m a hard stage left, right and centre guy. That’s my favourite perspective.
I haven’t checked out any Pink Floyd on my new setup yet. That’s from my fave album so I’ll have to check it out later today. Looking forward to hearing it.
I think I will be listening to Wish You Were Here later today too. My wife yelled downstairs to turn it down last time I was listening to that track. Some of those sounds sound like they are coming from behind me. I will give an update on what I hear later today.
Placement is most important regarding sound stage. I have my movie system upstairs 2.1 system and I have to have them left and right from the TV and only out a foot from the front wall. Dialogue sounds like it comes from the TV but lacks depth. My dedicated music listening room and system have speakers out 3-4 foot into the room and it is immersive. Agree 100% bever70
After much deliberation I finally decided my speakers sound and image best when placed in the corners of the room. I commend myself on the choice.
+ Muddy Folk Singer. Great album for checking equipment! Vanessa Fernandez is an awesome singer with top sounding recoding
Every speaker, every room combo are different on placement. Nothing is black and white in the speaker placement department.
The segue between WYWH and The Machine is amazing. I cranked my system and the low engine sound rumbled my one picture frame on the wall. The swirling sound at the beginning is surrounding. This low end really pressurized the room and never knew how much low end rumble is on this intro until recently. The swirling of electronic sounds going from left to right is very psychedelic. The acoustic guitar sounded very high in the mix. Like the guitar had height and clarity. Vocals sounded to be just left of center. There really is a lot of sounds going on, on this track. They did such a great job of creating that feeling of being inside a machine. The ending of the song is really cool being the sound of a door closing like you are leaving the machine. Next up I will have to listen to this on headphones. I prefer listening to music through speakers over headphones but... there are some albums that have to be heard on headphones.
Not for me! As I stated earlier in this thread, I listen to a lot of music* (mostly modern, avant-garde, contemporary classical), where the natural soundstage of the venue was captured on the recording. The reproduction of that soundstage sucks me, just a bit deeper, emotionally and intellectually, into the music. If I am comparing 2 speakers at a similar price point, and say, 1 of them has a bit better dynamics, and the other has better soundstage (and imaging), I will give up some dynamics to get the better soundstage (and imaging). *but I also listen to a lot of studio recorded music, too
This is pretty much the way I feel and have stated so in this thread and others. I only differentiate on a couple of points. 1. I disagree with the statement that, there must not be a sweet spot as a necessity of a good soundstage, and that the soundstage should be "visible clearly", even from way off to the side. Some of the systems I have ever heard, with regards to huge soundstage and pinpoint imaging, were with electrostatic speakers. The fact that the huge spacious soundstage is only discernable from 1 or 2 seats, does not detract at all, from experiencing that huge soundstage. I used to own a pair of Koss Model 1A full range electrostatic speakers, where there were only 2 seats in the sweet spot, but from there, the soundstage was ridiculously wide and deep. An even more exaggerated version of the above, is the Sanders electrostatic room setups at audiophile shows. His room setups, are a single column of chairs, one chair behind the other, in the middle of the speakers. But the soundstage from one of those chairs is phenomenal. And admittedly, it looks as if it shouldn't be. Could I live with this? No. But is really incredible. 2. And this may not be a real disagreement, but only a minor misunderstanding. But if by "your room should be a replica of a concert held in a large hall", you mean it should sound as if the concert hall has been transported to one's room, I disagree. To me, it should sound as if I have been transported to the original venue. Pretty much everything else you mention, we are on the same page.
I know all about stat panels as I was a Martin Logan dealer and trained at the factory on setup with yearly visits out to Lawrence Kansas and dinner at the table of Gayle Sanders. It is a shame stats image in such a narrow spot---that and they have little bass in many cases unless you augment them with subs or bass bins etc. However they are wonderful if THAT is exactly what you asked for a speaker to do. Some rooms in a crowded apartment complex may not afford to blast out loud bass---a clean presentation from a stat panel more than offsets that loss. And the loss of the "room" also keeps down reflection problems if you suffer from THAT problem. However. The idea that you wouldn't PREFER good sound everywhere in the room IF YOU COULD GET IT---seems less than ideal. I get stat like clarity out of box speakers. I just had to set the room up PERFECTLY to remove muck from the reflected noise. Stats don't have to work that hard. But now I have stat clarity AND you can sit all over the place too! On the second subject you are simply wrong. If you completely remove the "room sound" and the additional sweet reflections produced by a room shaped like a concert hall---you are now listening in the "Near Field." Such a theoretically DEAD ROOM allows you to only hear reverb clues and separation spacing that is on the actual recording. In fact you don't even have a soundfield---just the raw data on the record and whatever artificial reverb sweetening the engineer and producer put on there. Yes---you are "THERE" sitting inside the recording booth. But I promise you---there is no DEPTH on recordings AT ALL---if you remove the room entirely. Engineers do not for the most part even believe there is any dimensional quality to a recording. I have been asking them for 50 years and that is not what they do for a living. It's all just left/right with engineers. They can't HEAR it on monitors in a dead room and they don't WANT to hear it---it is distracting! That sort of playback is not necessarily a GOOD thing in the HOME. Dead and flat sound---ugh! I build this kind of DEAD ROOM for recording purposes and monitoring And incidentally, Stereo guys that try to tell me they have removed the room sound are mostly not even CLOSE. Killing a room completely is HARD. Even killing just the front wall is hard to do completely. Most recording studios leave a hard center reflection to hear the middle better. And they may get some room sound, but believe me they don't WANT it. They want DEAD. They don't want to listen in dimensions---they just want to listen in left/right with good center blend evenly across the spread. They hear it all in stereo---yes---but not with any dimension quality to it at all. And please don't get me wrong---I LIKE that sort of stat panel--no room sound---it's a MUST in the studio. I have a powerful, full range NearField setup myself and use it to check out the RECORDING. But when I want to be primarily entertained and hear the performance sound fuller and more satisfying (compare an orchestra playing in an outdoor field to playing inside at Carnegie Hall) I need a ROOM! Which sounds BETTER? The Philharmonic playing outside in an open field? Or playing inside at Carnegie Hall? The ROOM is ARTIFICIAL---says YOU. I DISAGREE. Carnegie Hall is a huge CONTRIBUTOR to the sound quality you are hearing! Sorry to contradict your very thoughtful post. But you are speaking with someone that has had to get these principles straight or not get PAID. Not to brag but you have HEARD recording made in rooms I built. I have been there and believe me I have done that. The Doc PS. I was thinking about this subject last night listening in my dead center seat in a room where I can sit ANYWHERE and get great imaging and clear 3D placement even way off center. It struck me how closely my concert hall mimicked the effect of sitting in a real concert hall. Those "perfectly centered seats" in the middle of the hall DO allow you to hear the spread balanced from right to left. But it is a bit "thin" sounding out there in the middle with no wall reinforcement. Dry and thin. Very clear--almost TOO CLEAR. But lovely of course. ALL MY SEATS are lovely! It took a TON of work but I wouldn't trade that effect for a nearfield setup. It is so much more satisfying. Thanks for reading this if you in fact listened to my rant. I did this job with passion and am trying to pass on important conclusions so someone else may not start out with nothing to start from, or worse with bad ideas as a start. Please ignore how pedantic I am. I remain The Doc
Checked out “Wish You Were Here” and it was great. But I also downloaded “Patsy Cline Gold” 2005 with some original release masters. The Sound Quality and content really blew me away. Fantastic!
First, thank you to the member who dreamed up this thread as I've thoroughly enjoyed reading it and found some amazing music as a result. A couple of points before I make my own nominations. I agree that DSOTM, even for a 1972 master, is amazing but one post alluded to a MFSL remastering. Where would this be available? If I can find it I'll buy it. Qobuz doesn't have it. What about Tidal or Spotify? I've recently discovered Vanessa Fernandez and would fully agree about the SQ as well as the quality of the music. For the classical music crew, venue can play a big part however, recording it well can require some real expertise. Someone in an earlier post mentioned the Concertegebouw in Amsterdam. This hall has a particular resonance that you won't hear anywhere else. To be there live for the first time is a hair raising experience. So my first recommendation is Murray Perahia and the RCO conducted by Haitink in the Beethoven Piano concertos. As well as being very good performances, the soundstage is amazing. String quartets can be great for soundstage and imaging. The Pavel Haas Quartet record for Supraphon, a Czech label. Their recording of Smetana SQs 1 & 2 are outstanding both musically and in soundstage. A string quartet sits in a semi circle and this recording captures that with pinpoint imaging and soundstage depth. Of course you won't get width as the players sit relatively close together but it's like being there in a small chamber hall. The back of the CD doesn't say where this was recorded. OK, back to checking out all those recommendations. Edit: I forgot about Rough Mix by Townsend and Lane
