3D Soundstage and How To Get It?

That image is hosted in the Audio Karma forum. You'll only see it if you are currently logged in to Audio Karma and also have that particular image in your browser cache.

You need to host the image on an image sharing site like Imgur. Then link directly to the JPG file on imgur. If you decide to use Imgur I would suggest making an account there first so you can manage your uploaded files and delete them later or make them private.

 

It's no longer showing to me. The pic came from AudioKarma, correct? I can open your pic by right clicking on the IMG icon and selecting "open in new window." It shows as an image on AudioKarma so I then copy the url to this forum.

 

Are you addressing me? Have you not noticed the images I've loaded on this thread?

edit: see post #188

 

Doh! You're right. Sorry about that.

I see your image on post #188 but not the posts I quoted you where I just see IMG in brackets.

Don't know why your pics are now not showing up in the last two pages of this thread.

Oops! Just read Ham Sandwich's post as to why this is happening. It's fixable on your end.

 

I struggled with placement based on imaging compared to functional locations in the room for speakers and love seat.

“So I Cheated” and slayed the monster with sliding diffuser/ absorbing DIY panels. The best of both worlds with a wonderful 3D representation. Listening to Donald Fagen, The Good By Look at only 50 dB volume and it’s sounding full of this imaging magic you speak of!

31” off back wall and listening position 60” off front wall. Equilateral speaker placement of 71” distance. Moved speakers out another 2” for sound stage to be at /and past the walls, but I had to slide the panels out as well.

I’m not kidding on the small adjustments to make it happen. Right panel center is 21.250” and Left panel center is 21.375“ from wall. Started with 1” movements, then 1/2”, 1/4” and a small 1/8” made all the difference in the world. Time consuming but the magic can be achieved with treatment.

 

He did put all of this in the OP

“Revel F52 driven by PrimaLuna Dialogue integrated, source is digital. There is also a Velodyne DD-12 sub. Room is 15' wide and 26' deep, system is on the narrow wall with speakers currently about 36" from the back wall (wall to front baffle), about 7'6" apart leaving roughly 40" between speakers and their adjacent side walls. Listening position is roughly 11' back as measured from each speaker face diagonally to my head. The listening chair is therefore roughly central in the room, front to back. Sub is halfway between left speaker and left side wall. Ceiling is 8'4" although there is a 3' x 15' bulk head directly above the equipment where the ceiling is therefore 7'8". The room is untreated and has cork flooring. The side wal are broken by a couple doorways and stairway on the left and by a large window ( with pleated fabric horizontal screen) and leather love-seat and bookshelves on the right. It's a lively room and I may add an area rug soon.

The sub has it's own PEQ and I've adjusted it reasonably well with no serious nodes or lean spots. Although I don't use Dirac, I have used Dirac to measure response (9 or 11 positions if I recall) and the speakers showed to be amazingly "flat". Ish. As it is now, I feel there are no serious issues with the bass handoff between speakers and sub - it seems pretty seamless and I rarely am aware of the sub, unless I turn it off.”

 

Thanks for describing your stage!

I enjoy tall and wide soundstage, especially the kind of stage that seems to go beyond the boundaries of my front wall. My front wall is ~16.5 ft wide and 9 ft tall. My speakers about 10.5 ft apart. I often could get that illusion of 20+ ft wide and 9+ ft tall stage.

Depth is harder to come by due to the type of music to which I listen. But with right recordings, I can get illusion of sound stage extends beyond the front of speakers at least several ft and far behind the speakers. With certain electronica sometimes I get sound stage extends much beyond the front of speakers, with sound moving above and around my head. Those are pretty cool effects.

 

You nailed it!

Didn't mean to (according to one person anyway) hijack this thread. It was to be one quick attempt at a picture and it did pertained to my earlier post here. Subsequent posts were to learn/thank the people who tried to help me. I also saw that the OP has not been back here in 4 days so felt it was only a slight divergence.

 

Thanks so much for being about the 5th person to point this out and to not read any of my responses, and to apparently support this practice of not listing one's gear in one's profile...

 

I’ve kept the sofa in place but moved the speakers to the calculated positions and then played around a bit. Definetely a difference for sure! The visual impact of sitting so close to the Tannoy Cheviots may take some getting used to though!

 

I have had many more misses than hits in the past forty years of setting up reasonably good listening systems. It has only been recently that I have attained an almost holographic sound stage. It has required; a system with synergy that is sufficiently capable of good music reproduction, a good listening room, optimal speaker and listening position placement, and sufficient room treatments. It has taken a year of tweaking the room and speaker placement alone. Regarding audio sources, well recorded music has spatial depth even from the FM tuner now. Can I tell someone exactly where to put their speakers, or how much treatment their room will take to achieve it, Nope! What I can say is a sound stage with amazing width, height, depth and tac sharp imaging is obtainable, but in no way is it easy.

Bill

 

I do not know what creates a huge soundstage, but I had one system with such a huge soundstage that everyone thought the rear speakers were on. They were not, just there for TV surround sound. My present system extends a little beyond the speakers but the sound is far superior to the huge soundstage system. It also has all the instruments & signer(s) in precise position in that soundstage so do I pick the later system as best.

BTW- Revel M22 have the best bass I ever heard. The bass has a well rounded attach & decay that makes the bass musical. The mid-bass custom speaker made by Revel 20 years ago is still used in their top speakers today. Revel can experiment but likely have not been able to create a better speaker. The 6.5 incher plays strong to 30 Hz.

 

Great to hear it worked for you! Yes, sitting that close to speakers might feel a bit uncomfortable at first. I had felt the same way. Closing the eyes and evaluating the sound without looking at speakers helped me get used to it. The speakers may be physically close to you but you can’t pinpoint their locations blindfolded, they just “disappear”.

I wish more people tried this calculated placement and found out what they’re missing. In fact getting a great soundstage is easy and it works with any speakers and any equipment. Before having my current system I tried it with $500 active Audioengine A5s and got the same great results.

 

I guess we both have speakers that are relatively easy to make sonically disappear (coaxials). However where your KEFs are really small my Cheviots are wide like a pair of barn doors. Not a major concern though as the room is dedicated to music listening.

What surprised me is that the bass response got better, both in precision and fullness!

 

You are lucky then. Some people reported that Cardas' placement eliminated almost all of their bass response. In my room, I still got some extra boominess which I was able to alleviate by using foam plugs in bass ports. Also I use a sub, which makes it easier to get both good bass response and good soundstage.

 

I have used the online Cardis calculator, tried my first computer aided speaker placement software in 1988, many choices available to us now days, these can be useful for initial placement point. Near field listening is another effective method to reduce the rooms effects on the music. If a room is to be used for more than just a listening space compromise usually comes into play. Measurement equipment can be useful for baseline comparison and correlation. Of course money can be used to expedite the process if applicable. Getting the best from each small piece and compromise has always been the way (hobby) for me.

Bill

 

I

I had the same feeling, almost claustrophobic with the speakers so close. I have since moved the speakers back from 75 to 68 inches out now. The image depth has remained just fine and the aesthetic is better.

 

If it wasn't for the CD I bought from listening to a YouTube vid of one of the songs posted on an SHF thread, I would've never realized I could get a 3D sound in the crappy listening environment and sound system I installed myself in my '92 Nissan Sentra.

The audio engineer on Susie Arioli Swing Band "Pennies From Heaven" album is a genius in my book. This album shows what a properly recorded amplified electric guitar should sound like in stereo. I know what that sounds like from twiddling knobs on a big box guitar amplifier as a kid while my country music playing uncles would play through. It's the best sounding jazz recording of this style of guitar I've heard on my car's audio system or any system for that matter.



I was turning heads playing this album cranked up in my car with the windows down. I would've never heard of this album if it wasn't posted here on SHF. And it cost me about $5 used on Amazon.

So I guess I don't need to move the furniture or speakers around to get a 3D sound in my car. That's a relief.

My Nissan isn't a chick magnet by any stretch, but I'm of the belief it's better to sound good than look good.

 

I notice you got rid of the side reflections by winding your windows down !

 

Yeah, not sure if you're kidding but for some reason the sound is better with the windows down driving down the highway or just slow cruising in my local park. A closed in car cab loses a lot of stage presence.

Also forgot to mention I have two 6in. speakers screwed into thick walled PVC plumbing tubes cut to about 7in. long and bolted to the kick panel next to the firewall, one each facing forward on the passenger and driver side with foam backing stuffed in the open rear tubes with bass blockers to reduce resonance. Adjusting fader on the head unit adds to the 3D effect. The rears 6x8's and two subs are driven by a 250watt Alpine amp with built in and active internal 80Hz crossover network. I like a clean and accurate sound, not boomy bass resonating throughout the cab which also emphasizes 3D stage presence.

 

Hi Robert AKA @WildPhydeaux

I'm not certain if anyone else has mentioned this in your thread as it is quite long and expansive and some posts I agree with. I haven't seen anyone touch on what I'm going to share, and apologies if they have. It's the method that worked the best for me. It's the George Cardas Room & Equipment set-up here My room is no perfect rectangle with baffles and other room tuning equipment but when I put my 1st pressing of Dark Side Of The Moon on imaging, left to right, right to left and backwards ie: depth is spectacular. The same thing with Roger Waters Mastersound Gold CD of Amused To Death with outside the speakers presentation. I have others like this as well a vast majority being old early to mid 80's CD pressings. It seems to all come down to source. If it's not available there's no way to get it. The equipment if it's not capable the same result. The room seems to come in last and has had no effect on 3D imaging ability for me personally. A great CD for setting up imaging is The Sheffield Labs MDMS: System Conditioning And Degaussing CD. Wishing you the best in finding the 3D imaging you are after.

 

Not sure if this has already been suggested, but one thing that I would ask that you try is to center the sub between your other speakers. Even though most deep bass will be "omnidirectional", as the frequency increases, localization will become more and more apparent. As you only have one sub, I believe that you would benefit greatly by trying this. The entire stage will be more locked to the center image and give you a better sense of space. As the sub crosses to the midbass on your mains, this should tie the illusion together better and give you a more cohesive image.

Try track one "an Aborted beginning" on the "Spaces" Album by Nils Frahm