3D Soundstage and How To Get It?

I would like to suggest an alternative and probably much more radical explanation.

In going to a lot of audiophiles' homes, I am convinced that some audiophiles either cannot hear the 3D effect, or, at a minimum, they don’t place much or any value in it. The reason for this is that their systems obviously don’t have it, and in discussions with the audiophile in question, they never notice it’s absence, nor do they tend to speak about three dimensionality in their critiques of systems. As a side note, these are often audiophiles who are fine with sitting off center, something no 3D listener would even consider for serious listening or evaluation, since it totally destroys or collapses the soundstage.

I do not think it is likely that someone can be an audiophile and not notice the effect in a considerable number of rooms at any audio show, or in most well designed audio stores, unless they are either "blind" to the effect or "immune" to its charms. Anyone who has heard a pair of even haphazardly well positioned Maggies has either heard the effect, or is immune to the effect.

By the way, speaking of audio shows, those susceptible to the effect, can walk into a room and in two seconds in the sweet spot determine whether the folks setting up the room are into three dimensionality or not. If they aren’t, and their room doesn’t have it, I assume that it isn’t important to them, and that our preferences simply differ.

 

No, we've entered the Koolaid drinkers phase of our discussion. Drink up and continue on attempting to get a 3D effect with speaker placement. Just don't throw your back out in the process. Good luck with ALL THAT!

 

First start with placement. Even without placement changes, move closer and farther from your speakers to see if the image changes, for better or worse. Try moving up and down as well, example standing closer versus sitting closer.

My bet is on flutter echo being the culpret. Flutter echo, mainly in the upper midrange will end imaging. Read up about it and decide if you are willing to deal with it. Based on responses so far, I'm guessing not.

Good luck.

 

I notice that the tweeters on your speakers are up pretty high. High frequencies are very directional. It's possible that when you moved everything closer, you lost the highs because they were simply going over your head. Did you notice if the high frequencies came back when you stood up? That could have been part of your problem. Perhaps those speakers just aren't designed to be listened to that close. I will say this. The room really is VERY important. I've moved my equipment to various rooms and spaces and there are some rooms where imaging and soundstaging just completely fall apart and moving around the speakers doesn't really fix things. Good luck...I'd hate to see you give up so easily.

 

I would say, first, most importantly, not all recordings have 3D soundstages. Mono multimono pan potted pop and rock and R&B stereo recordings aren't going to deliver any kind of real soundstage, and whatever soundstage they have may be wide and precise, but not necessarily deep. So start with recordings that were actually made the the intent to capture the actually soundstage of a recorded performance. Maybe some of the '50s RCA Living Stereo classical recordings, a good one for soundstage presentation like the Kondrashin recording of Rimsky-Korsakoff's Capriccio Espangnol. Or the version of Varese's "Ionisation" on the late '70s Nonesuch Percussion Music recording by the NJ Percussion Ensemble. Or, for width certainly if not depth, Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth. Arthur Blythe's Night Song.

Second, make sure you have parallel set up. You say you have walls and doors and openings that are different on different walls of your room. That's going to screw up sound staging. See what you can do to create more parallel paths for reflections and get everything out of the space between you and the speakers -- no coffee tables, no other furniture, etc.

Third, room treatments -- nothing messes up soundstaging more than reflections and long overhanging bass decay times. You gotta kill all the flutter echo in a room; you need broadband absorption at first reflection points, and you need to fix problems with comb filtering effects from any objects around in a room and especially from whatever is behind you (if you have room to do diffusion behind the listening position, that can be a huge boon; if not, do broadband absorption; and don't sit in any kind of chair with a high back behind your ears or any kind of thing like that). And ideally you need to do bass trapping to get the bass decay times closer to the HF decay times.

Fourth, for goodness sake, get your listening position out of the center of the room. That's about the worst place you possibly can sit in a room in terms of having huge frequency response nulls and peaks related to room boundaries and modes.

Worth noting, also, not all speakers image great. I don't know about those Revels, but I will say, often mini monitors do better than towers in that regard. As often to Are you sitting with your ears at tweeter height?

I'm a big imaging listener. It's one of the things I'm most interested in when it comes to high end audio -- the speakers disappearing, summoning the original recording space in the room, feeling like I'm watching the performers in front of me in that space in my mind's eye. The biggest things you can do to make this happen -- besides actually listening to recordings that present a real soundstage -- is to minimize the effects of speaker - room and listener - room boundaries (and to lower all kinds of noise, ambient noise, electronic noise), so you can hear into the recorded space without disruption from the space you're actually physically in.

 

When I said there was little to no difference when adjusting tow-in, I meant from zero toe-in (pointed straight ahead) to pointed directly at me. There were differences, but very subtle and none seemed a poor choice. Central focus remained intact for centered vocals - the amount of toe-in affected how laser focused that central point is when weaving my head back and forth, but it didn't affect any spacial cues or lack thereof.

There IS no 3D image, so moving one speaker 10 feet the other other 5 feet could hardly affect it. But the sound would certainly go from 2D to a point source I assume.

I enjoy rock, but listen primarily to jazz. This isn't me expecting a wall of sound to be detailed.

Incidentally, a few folks have scoffed at the 3D term and someone early on suggested I not use it. Agreed - seems like folks think I expect instruments to float around the room. And I would remind that it's not my expectation that "depth" is something I can get - as my OP suggests, I was looking to quantify if it was possible, as so many describe it. I personally have never heard it demonstrated but am somewhat open minded to the concept of depth and wider than speaker placement width.

Cheers,
Robert

 

Yup. A better explanation of what I was trying to say with my first sentence in my post. How the imaging is presented is radically different depending on the recording! NO system is going to present a 3D image from a recording that doesn't have that kind of imaging built in to begin with.

 

Of all the various things in hifi to call drinking koolaid this would not be one of them. I'd suggest reading about things like direct vs reflected sound, RT60 and reflection free zones. Many professionals that design concert halls and recording studios have written about these things. Take your speakers and listen to them outside, do they sound the same as when they are in an average sized listening room? A speaker is a source radiating sound into a room and what we hear is a combination of the direct sound from the speakers and the sound that comes bouncing off the walls, some of these reflections are termed early and some are late.

While what you are saying about channel delay is something that can be accomplished digitally, this sort of information is present in well done recordings. It is unnecessary for the user to add further alterations. On a good setup it is pretty easy to hear if a cello was recorded in a free space as opposed to close to some walls, because of this information like the channel delay or reverberation that is part of the recording.

 

You're turning your speakers into headphones which have a fixed and constant sweet spot so now the music must perform the delay effect from how it was recorded and processed.

For this to work with speakers on regular stereo recorded music that has a flat but maybe wide or live sounding head space, the directional frequencies will have to be EQ'ed by hardware and then the volume increased by either getting closer to the speakers or raising the volume knob because now the delay effect has been compromised and placed off axis to when it reaches the ears due to the speed decrease from distance standing back listening to speakers.

It may take a long time moving speakers and then attenuating the music in loudness and EQ adjustments to get the right effect.

 

Really good point regarding tweeter placement and listening distance. Not relevant until now I should mention I'm 6'7" tall, so sit fairly tall in the saddle... I did get up often to make placement changes, but the darkness in the sound didn't lift appreciably until I put distance between myself and the speakers.

I haven't given up, but I'm not hot to waste another weeknight on it. I'll try one of the methods on a weekend.

Cheers,
Robert

 

Explain the physics that is occurring that creates the 3D effect with stereo speakers. You're just being argumentative which isn't informative at all.

 

I regret ever using "3D" as a descriptor which seems to be a trigger with you. I can't argue the point hvbias is making as I've not experienced depth to a sound stage. But I've walked in a valley and heard noises I would have sworn came from A but were in fact coming from B. Must have been TreeSP.

Cheers,
Robert

 

There's no trigger. You described in your OP that you wanted a sound stage from your speakers where you could point to musical instruments and other audio elements to sound as if outside of your speakers in a 3D space which is possible. I showed you the '80's Panasonic RX series boombox that could do this with hardware but the listener still had to be within a equidistant sweet spot to hear this effect just like with headphones.

Now you're backtracking and changing the goal post because I've explained that this can't be done by rearranging the speakers in the room.

So now what goal are you wanting to achieve with your speakers if it's not getting a wider, opened up sound stage with regularly recorded music?

 

I'm sorry but saying people are drinking koolaid and telling people they're defying the laws of physics is what I would say was argumentative if not trolling, but I chose to reply anyway since I agreed about what you said about digital channel delay. There is no defying the laws of physics with how omnidirectional frequencies would differ from more directional frequencies and how they are perceived with regard to how sound reflects off surfaces and creates what we hear. Again pick up any of the resources I have suggested, I have written nothing out of the ordinary here if you have taken the time to fully digest this material. Speakers that are toed in more (depending on the speaker design's radiation pattern) will reflect the sound differently from a speaker that sprays its sound all over the room, this will effect image depth, width, layering and projection (specifically avoiding this 3D word).

Perhaps @WildPhydeaux is correct in that image depth and width is a more accurate term than calling it 3D effect. Depth, width, layering and how some sound can project more forward into a room and some can sound like it is in a further back image plane is not independent of speaker design, room size and placement. You might as well say all speakers sound the same.

This is from Floyd Toole's book, this book is a compiling decades of acoustic and hearing research and everything written in it points to published articles. When things are subjective (for instance this "3D" thing we are discussing, maybe best called just imaging) blind testing was used.





If you think your sole opinion is absolute and trumps this research then perhaps it's best leaving our discourse at that, I'll choose to side on the side of research and what I hear than someone that has already made up his mind.

 

The fact that you are 6'7" (wow) really will have an effect on the sound based on the position of your ears relative to the tweeters. The fact that you moved closer and the sound got dark may be explained by your ear height.
You can easily figure out ideal seating height, if you are so inclined (no pun), simply by starting with a low box, and building up height with large books or something else (used to be phone books, but those aren't too common any more).
I think folks here are generally trying to help, not get into arguments. I also understand your disdain for fiddling with gear. To me, all the measurements in the world don't mean much if in the final analysis, it doesn't sound like real instruments to me. I think, at the end of the day, you do have to trust your ears--

 

Does all that explain why one has to still be listening within a sweet spot for the delay effect both BTW between listener and speakers and between left/right channel reflection?

 

Perhaps you should reread the OP. I specifically said I had never experienced this but had read of other peoples experience where they describe deep and wide sound stage. In fact I hint at doubting it but am open minded to try suggestions. I had wondered if much of peoples experience was rich imagination. I never said it was a product for sale that I wanted, only that its been described and I wondered if it was truly available.

I'm not backtracking in the least - I've got nowhere to backtrack from, having experienced exactly nothing after trying a couple of the suggestions. I'm neither more nor less convinced than I was when I posted the initial query. Don't give yourself credit for my original stance of skepticism.

I did listen to the Youtube you linked to and wasn't particularly surprised that a spacial sound gimmic from the 80's didn't translate well. I don't have blacklight posters on the walls either.

Cheers,
Robert

 

The Sumiko method actually talks about tilting the speakers to get proper image height.

OP can easily experiment with tilting tonight other than waiting till weekend.

 

Yep, that's the way I'm taking it - as helpful suggestions based on their own experiences. There seems to only be one person here with an agitation agenda, easily ignored now that I recognize that.

Cheers,
Robert

 

I'm kinda tall, too. I had some custom stands made so I got the ear height bit right.

Also, people don't often mention height in terms of soundstage, but it seems to definitely be that sound are localized not just forward or deeper, but often lower or higher.

 

So now what do want from this thread? More speaker positioning tips?

All I'm trying to do is keep you from going on a snipe hunt rearranging your audio setup in order to achieve some NOW arbitrary sound quality improvement. We don't even know what music you're listening to which plays a HUGE part in sound quality.

 

I'm not sure if there is research addressing the exact thing you are asking. If I had to guess it is primarily a function of the speaker's radiation pattern. If the channel delay is present it should not restrict someone to a narrow sweet spot if the speaker has a wide sweet spot, this just a best guess based off what I know on speaker radiation and how it effects imaging. I bet you this type of digital channel delay research is taking place with cochlear implants which are primarily concerned with speech intelligibility, I know an ENT surgeon that is more involved with that has told me about some of the research on that side.

 

This is something that I discovered back in the mid 70s and it was quite life changing.

It takes a lot of things being right to be able to reproduce three dimensionality in a 2 channel sound system. I've always designed my systems to portray this well.

First of all, IMO you need speakers that are designed to do this. In my case it means all the drivers are in the same plane, time aligned and the left and right speakers have to be the same exact distance from your ears. Also I find it important to only have one driver covering each frequency range.

The whole purpose is to have the phantom image from the two main speakers be exactly in the center. If you can't achieve that, than I doubt you will ever get three dimensionality. It's also very important to have your speakers symmetrical, or mirror images of each other.

Let's explore this a bit. If you have two speakers (left and right) covering a specific frequency range, the sound from both of them arrives at your ears at the same precise time, assuming you're in an inert environment and the speakers are equidistant from your listening position. Now, what happens when you have two speakers in the same box covering the same range. The sound from both of those speakers will arrive at your ears at slightly different times almost as if you were employing a digital delay, albeit with a very slight delay. This will blur the image. Besides that it can alter the harmonic structures. So even if you were listening in mono and with just one speaker, having multiple drivers covering the same range can be problematic.

Now lets talk about non symmetrical speakers. Lets look at a 3 way speaker with the tweeter on one side and the mid range driver on the other side. If you were to measure the distance from the left tweeter to the right tweeter and compare that to the distances between the mid range drivers, yes the distances will be the same, but the phantom image of all three speakers will be in slightly different locations. The phantom image of the drivers on the left will be in one place, and the phantom image of the drivers on the right will be in a different place. The woofers, which I assume for this discussion are in the middle, will have a third phantom location.

What this means is that it will be impossible to get a phantom image that stays in the center for all frequencies. Under these conditions, you will not be able to get a convincing three dimensional sound stage.

I know many have talked about how wide a sweet spot one has in their systems, but in my opinion, there is only one sweet spot and it's very small. If you put your head right in the middle, with speakers as discussed above, and you listen to a mono recording, you will hear nothing coming from anywhere other than exactly in the center between the speakers. If you move you head an inch off of that center while listening to a stereo recording, your 3D image will suffer and the further from that point you move the less of it will remain.

I think many consider a sweet spot to be something different that I do. Many speakers sound great on axis, but not so good if you're sitting off to the side. This is fine for one that is willing to sit in the middle between the speakers, but this is really only prime for one listener at a time. My speakers sound great from that sweet spot, but not so great when off axis. Other speakers that have a very poor 3D image may sound far better than mine when the listener is off axis.

So many people actually prefer a speaker system that has wider dispersion and better off axis response. Of course there is nothing wrong with this approach, and I imagine more people go for this than for my approach. Just realize that you will be sacrificing that captivating 3D effect for other sonic aspects that are more important to you. Once again, there is nothing wrong with this. We're all different and all have different ways we like to listen.

OK this is just the speakers. Amplifiers, preamplifiers, and sources all have varying abilities to reproduce the depth I'm talking about. Even if your speakers are set up right, many amps just don't portray depth well.

I've tried dozens of amps over the years and only a few were able to produce the front to back depth I crave convincingly. Amp that don't do this can surely sound great for other aspects of audio. As the OP mentioned, most never get to hear this type of thing, and if that's the case there is no need to find an amp that excels at portraying depth, because there are other facets of audio that are also important. All amps that portray depth well don't necessarily sound better than other amps with other sought after qualities.

There is another factor in this and before mentioning it, I should point out how many people think I'm wrong about it, so make up your own mind.

I got started in hi-fi when I was young and by the 70s I had a pretty darn good system. As I mentioned, recreating that three dimensionality was one of my main goals. I learned that it was very difficult to achieve and the better my systems got the more of it I heard. All of my components were chosen with this in mind.

Once I started working in the pro studios, I had lots of clients who came over to listen to my system. These were all professional engineers. Almost all of them were extremely disappointed when they brought their studio outputs. This was a great thing for me, as my 'job' at that time was to improve the output of my client studios and make them sound more like the big buck studios I had worked in. My system exposed the weaknesses in these recordings, and when I played well made records for them, they were generally bummed out to determine how much better many of then sounded than did their recordings.

My system became a reference system and I used it to improve the quality of my clients recordings. They were able to hear so much on my system that they did not hear in their studios. This was both good and bad. The bad was obvious, but the good was that we were able to greatly improve the sounds of the recordings and verify the results on my system.

So my system became somewhat famous with my clients, mainly because of all the things my clients could hear through it. One of the things that everybody noticed was the three dimensionality, and most had no idea that that could be encoded into a stereo recording. But here is the thing. Once we started listening to digital recordings, especially CD's, everybody noticed that the 3D was gone. Put on a record and it was on full display, but play a CD and it was nowhere to be found.

Now I fully expect that people who didn't have a 3D system noted no such distinction between vinyl and CD. But that illustrated an interesting point, and once again many disagree with it. IMO CD's just don't portray three dimensionality very well and vinyl surely can. It doesn't always, because as I mentioned upthread, everything in the recording chain has to be able to portray depth. As we all know, audio flows through a chain from recording, to mixing, to mastering, to playback, with lots of things in the chain. If one thing in that chain doesn't pass the depth, it can be lost.

The same thing happens in playback, assuming that the source has 3D content. If your source, preamp, or amp doesn't portray it well you will have a very hard time hearing it.

Here is the contentious part that I did discover. That depth that was there on well made records, and gone on CD, is back with many high resolution recordings. I have my theories why this is, but I'm surely not well versed in digital compared to many here, so I'll keep those ideas to myself unless anybody asks. I don't want the aggravation from those who think I'm nuts, and I have discovered that there are quite a few here who think that.

For the rest of you, if you haven't yet heard a three dimensional recording, I implore you go continue with your search. I assure you that you can get there if you're willing to put in the time and work.

To those of you who think I imagine hearing what I do, and that includes many, please ignore this post. You will never be convinced because you have closed your mind to new ideas that you find challenging for a variety of reasons. I will also add, that I've had dozens of naysayers come over to hear a demo of these concepts and each and every one changed their impressions after an educational listening session.

I should also mention that I spent a lot of time trying to convince others here to open their minds and broaden their horizons but I got so much negative feedback that I pretty much gave up on that. I had no desire to bolster my self image. My only goal was to share with others things that I had discovered and learned over the years, and I had many impressive studio owner clients who were very grateful. Here it's a mixed bag. I think there are more people that think I'm nuts than knowledgeable, mainly because they claim there is no sonic difference between CD and hi-res or vinyl and I am sure that I hear one, and described the differences I've heard ad naseum.

That is precisely the reason I stopped posting here about this stuff, as it became too aggravating and unpleasant, but I just had to respond to the OP since his question was right up my alley.

 

^ this is a great post, as always from Doug. If you don't mind, speakers that are often described by their designers as time aligned also talk about minimum phase. What's your take there?

Anyway, I've puzzled over time alignment, and have come to realize that it can only be had in one small spot.

 

Time and phase are related. In order to get three dimensional sound I believe you have to have a very phase coherent system.

What we want is for all sound to arrive at the same exact time. Phase lags slow that down and blur the image.

Time alignment can be accomplished several ways. Easiest is to make sure all your drivers voice coils are in the same plane. We used to do this with PA and it made a big difference just by itself. It's not so easy with a consumer speaker because you can't mount all the drivers on the same flat baffle. You can also do it with crossovers but that's more complex. Most designers use both physical and electronic means to achieve time alignment.

There are not too many time aligned consumer speakers systems, but they're out there.

It doesn't have to be in a small spot. PA did not deal with small spots.

I did a lot of experiments with phase back in the 70s when I was trying to create a device that would make sounds seem to sound like they're coming from beyond the plane of the speakers. It was a somewhat effective device but didn't always convert well to mono.