How to achieve soundstage depth

[Jac Hawk]

It's easy to achieve with an a/v amp and a 5.1 setup, my living room setup has to do everything, i like most of us don't have a room just for music, anyway after much experimenting and with demons on my shoulders telling me "this isn't proper stereo you muppet" I have my small room set up to sound like a much bigger space, one of the effects of this is the soundstage is much much wider and deeper, it sounds like instruments are outside of the walls.

[OD1]

I guess I should have phrased my question like this

The Soundstage I hear is always within the room boundaries, how can one get around this without room treatment, is it even possible ?

[Sherwood]

I forgot to mention my system

Sources :
Gyrodec SE / OL Encounter 3c / DV 20X2L / Rothwell MCL
Cambridge CXC / Caiman II with latest mods

Croft 25R into Croft S7

Harbeth C7ES3

Listening room 25' long / 8' high, 9' wide for 12' of the length, and 12' wide for remaining 13' of length.
System is in the 9' wide part of the room with speakers firing down the length. SWMBO will not allow me to set up in the wider section of the room !!!

I would suggest that it is your system placement rather than your equipment that is restricting imaging. Having lived in many different places over the years I have found the best imaging in larger "squarish" rooms. In fact, the best imaging I achieved was in a lounge that must have been at least 30' by 35' feet with really high ceilings. It had a concrete floor and walls with marble floor tiling. This might have made the sound very bright but it was furnished with big sofas, heavy curtains, thick jute rugs, and lots of books in cane bookshelves. I was able to place my speakers well out into the room and far away from sidewalls. I found that the image extended back as far as I pulled the speakers away from the ways, and sometimes further. My current lounge is of similar proportions to yours and imaging is far less impressive now.

Although it may not be allowed as a permanent layout I would encourage you to position your speakers around 1/3 of the length of the room at least a couple of feet away from the sidewalls. Position yourself at least a few feet from the rear wall and see whether you can percieve the missing depth. My guess is that you will!

Geoff

[Sherwood]

I guess I should have phrased my question like this

The Soundstage I hear is always within the room boundaries, how can one get around this without room treatment, is it even possible ?

Move your system into the garden and listen from your lounge!

[struth]

Easier with big speakers that are wide apart i guess. Mine do it quite well with some material, and can do the bouncy too i think due to the 4 main drivers.

[walpurgis]

I have big Tannoys in a small 10' by 11' room and the depth of soundstage extends way back, recreating a big ambience if it's in the recording.

[OD1]

I would suggest that it is your system placement rather than your equipment that is restricting imaging. Having lived in many different places over the years I have found the best imaging in larger "squarish" rooms. In fact, the best imaging I achieved was in a lounge that must have been at least 30' by 35' feet with really high ceilings. It had a concrete floor and walls with marble floor tiling. This might have made the sound very bright but it was furnished with big sofas, heavy curtains, thick jute rugs, and lots of books in cane bookshelves. I was able to place my speakers well out into the room and far away from sidewalls. I found that the image extended back as far as I pulled the speakers away from the ways, and sometimes further. My current lounge is of similar proportions to yours and imaging is far less impressive now.

Although it may not be allowed as a permanent layout I would encourage you to position your speakers around 1/3 of the length of the room at least a couple of feet away from the sidewalls. Position yourself at least a few feet from the rear wall and see whether you can percieve the missing depth. My guess is that you will!

Geoff

Hi Geoff,
I tried this a few times, but always had the depth confined to the rear wall. I managed to increase the soundstage width beyond the side walls by speaker placement, but no luck with depth.

[OD1]

I have big Tannoys in a small 10' by 11' room and the depth of soundstage extends way back, recreating a big ambience if it's in the recording.

Do you have room treatment on your rear wall ?

[User211]

Dipoles and omnis are good at creating depth effects, simply because they fire sound all over the place. I'm sure the reflections add to a sense of spaciousness.

The Martin Logan curved ESL panel chucks sound around a lot to create comb filtering effects. ML imaging can be fairly insane when set up away from the front walls.

Some horn drivers, and I am thinking GIP here, can throw images right behind your head with laser guided precision. Witnessed at Munich. Bizarre & incredible when actually heard. Probably an artifact of shooting sound waves down a narrow flaring pipe.

Phase is important and you will find that putting your speakers out of phase drastically affects imaging. My guess is vinyl is good at messing up phase relationships to give a more spatial sound. That is a serious guess, though. No evidence. That said, the higher noise floor of vinyl definitely provides injected dither, which IS known to increase the sense of space and air. Some recordings use it deliberately. Porcupine Tree use it.

[Sherwood]

Hi Geoff,
I tried this a few times, but always had the depth confined to the rear wall. I managed to increase the soundstage width beyond the side walls by speaker placement, but no luck with depth.

Oliver,

I am not sure what you are trying to achieve. Surely the goal is to reproduce the recording with regard to the original spatial placement of the performers. If you were hearing the performers "layered" behind the plane of the speakers when you had the speakers well out into the room then surely that is mission accomplished. Yes, on some recordings the sound appears very far back and outside the speakers but that is often due to specific room reflections and interactions. It is also important to differentiate between "depth" and volume. As some have already noted on this forum, dynamic systems can enhance the illusion of depth because they permit the reproduction of parts recorded at low volume.

Geoff