Sound Size

[RMutt]

Not something I’ve seen discussed. My other half was between the speakers the other night. I realised the sound was bigger than her, like vocals were coming from a giant head. I suppose it it relates to sound stage etc. I wouldn’t have noticed had she not been there and when I am on my own there is no context. Has anyone else noticed this?

[struth]

Gap tape sorts all

[Barry]

Were you playing the vocals loudly?

[Ninanina]

My other half was between the speakers the other night

If someone was between my speakers I'd ask them kindly to step aside.. :lol:

[fatmarley]

What speakers are they?

[RMutt]

Well, they started out as Goodmans Magisters. They were playing quite loud. But now I’m aware of it, it happens when it’s quite too. Quiet.

[RMutt]

Worth an experiment for anybody interested.

[Macca]

Going to be recording dependant to an extent. What were you listening to?

I've had set ups where the vocalist or featured instrument has been too forward and eclipses all else, and set ups where it sounds like they or it is two towns over. Usually it was a combination of things that was the problem. Not that I'm saying it is a problem if that's how you like it. It bugs me though. I recall a bloke saying to me at a show one time that he didn't like a particular horn speaker system because the images were 'Too big.' I didn't get that at the time but I went back and had another listen and he was right.

[Ninanina]

I can't say I'd like any part of the music to be too far 'forward' as that wouldn't sound natural to me... just my thoughts though.. ;)

[Light Dependant Resistor]

Not something I’ve seen discussed. My other half was between the speakers the other night. I realised the sound was bigger than her, like vocals were coming from a giant head. I suppose it it relates to sound stage etc. I wouldn’t have noticed had she not been there and when I am on my own there is no context. Has anyone else noticed this?

There are numerous variables leading to a less or best soundstage. Rob's picture introduction here shows some of these variables https://robmid42.wixsite.com/diyaudiokits

In my own room I have speakers 800mm from the floor, 700mm from the rear wall and 500 from the side.
Achieving realistic depth and perspective can be done and involves very good matching of partnering equipment.

[Macca]

Technically speaking everything going on in the soundstage should be happening behind the plane of the speakers. Vocalists should not be 'Right out on the carpet in front of me', as many a flat earth reviewer used to say in praise. Maybe they still do. But then it's horses for courses isn't it?


Plus you've got the recordings. I've got some jazz and big band recordings from the 1940s and 1950s and some of them are mixed a bit heavy handed. Most professional stuff late sixties and on, everything should be in the right perspective on the soundstage. Artistic decisions excepted of course.

[Pharos]

On voice even a recoding using a Blumlein pair is a compromise, an illusion.

Much of the reproduced sound comes unnaturally from two wide sources, and the stereo effect is designed to fool the ear/brain using phase, and time delay, and IMO that rarely is effective if the vocalist is centred.

The worst giveaway is that sibilants come very definitely from each speaker, top being perceived as more directional, and so in the middle of a vocal phrase suddenly there is a bust of esses coming quite clearly as separate entities one from each speaker. This is a logistical failing of recordings only able to be overcome by having a singer to one side, and removing a bit of top from the other in the mix.

[Macca]

I don't know. Getting the speakers to 'disappear' I've found has tended to be more about reducing noise and distortion at every point in the chain - including the speakers. Room and positioning have been secondary to that by a fair margin.


This was the best imaging speaker I ever heard. Forget your horns and electrostatics. I did not realise how much spatial information could possibly be on a recording until these:

https://i.imgur.com/905PyhT.jpg

[Light Dependant Resistor]

Technically speaking everything going on in the soundstage should be happening behind the plane of the speakers. Vocalists should not be 'Right out on the carpet in front of me', as many a flat earth reviewer used to say in praise. Maybe they still do. But then it's horses for courses isn't it?


Plus you've got the recordings. I've got some jazz and big band recordings from the 1940s and 1950s and some of them are mixed a bit heavy handed. Most professional stuff late sixties and on, everything should be in the right perspective on the soundstage. Artistic decisions excepted of course.

If the soundstage is happening solely behind the plane of the speakers as suggested, your partnering equipment is losing important spatial information
the usual culprit being the preamp or attenuator,

The soundstage in a really good system will be akin to a sphere allowing forward backward and height information. A test is Los Endos
Genesis Trick of the Tail- listen to where Phil Collins voice projects from, saying " there's an angel standing in the Sun, freed to get back home"
( continuing a similar vocal from Suppers Ready for the Genesis aficionado )

[RMutt]

99.9% of the time I sit and listen to what I feel is a believable sonic landscape. Occasionally there will be an anomaly like drums appearing too wide for one man to play them or a guitar being played by a vocalist and the voice and guitar seeming to come from two different places. These are recording issues though. Usually I am happy with the illusion. It’s amazing really to have an orchestra or a guitar vocalist in your room. I suppose there has to be a little compromise somewhere. It was perhaps misleading of me to focus on vocals. I don’t think it is that they are too forward or not placed in the correct space. It is literally the size of the sound. Quite difficult to describe and much easier to experience. It is only noticeable when you have someone in front of you at the same time as the music that the scale of the two doesn’t quite fit, shut your eyes and the issue goes away. I think the whole sound is big. Oddly it was what I liked about the Magisters, the scale of the sound. It probably gets exaggerated when the music is louder. No real issue, I can always close my eyes!

[Pigmy Pony]

No sound stage is bigger than Mrs. Pony. If she stands in front of the speakers it all goes quiet.. Please don't tell her I said that.

[struth]

No sound stage is bigger than Mrs. Pony. If she stands in front of the speakers it all goes quiet.. Please don't tell her I said that.

ooo, thats blackmail-ible :D

i wouldnt say that about the wife and shes dead ;) she'd get me

[bumpy]

I don't know. Getting the speakers to 'disappear' I've found has tended to be more about reducing noise and distortion at every point in the chain - including the speakers. Room and positioning have been secondary to that by a fair margin.


This was the best imaging speaker I ever heard. Forget your horns and electrostatics. I did not realise how much spatial information could possibly be on a recording until these:

https://i.imgur.com/905PyhT.jpg

Open baffles rule OK

[Barry]

Re' 'soundstaging', I'm a believer in what the late Peter Walker of Quad used to say:

"Somewhere near the plane of your speakers and beyond, the walls of your listening room should appear to disappear and be replaced with the walls of the recording venue."

I dislike systems in which the performers appear to be playing in your listening room. It should be a case not of 'they are here', but of 'you are there'.

[Pharos]

I'm very pleased that what Peter Walker said is pretty well what I said in '72, and have been saying ever since, but of course the recording's acoustic is superimposed on the listening room acoustic.

[Lawrence001]

Not something I’ve seen discussed. My other half was between the speakers the other night. I realised the sound was bigger than her, like vocals were coming from a giant head. I suppose it it relates to sound stage etc. I wouldn’t have noticed had she not been there and when I am on my own there is no context. Has anyone else noticed this?How far apart are your speakers? My experience has always been that if you position them quite far apart for large scale music, you stretch out performers on more intimate recordings. Unless the intimate recordings are compressed towards the middle of the soundstage wise (which I have found for example on some Hyperion recordings relative to close mic'd Archiv) then I think this is an inevitable consequence. Others may have different experiences.

Sent from my BLN-L21 using Tapatalk

[Pharos]

I've never experienced a voice which is 'centred' as, anything other than an inappropriately wide and spread one on six sets, five of which were high end speakers.

[RMutt]

How far apart are your speakers? My experience has always been that if you position them quite far apart for large scale music, you stretch out performers on more intimate recordings. Unless the intimate recordings are compressed towards the middle of the soundstage wise (which I have found for example on some Hyperion recordings relative to close mic'd Archiv) then I think this is an inevitable consequence. Others may have different experiences.

Sent from my BLN-L21 using Tapatalk

I suppose they are about seven or eight foot apart. A couple of feet from side and back walls and about seven foot from the listening position. Thinking about it and having another little experiment I suspect it is related to volume as Barry thought. A quiet voice can be amplified to the point where it is louder than someone in the room speaking loudly. This then feels incongruous and creates the ‘ big head/vocal’ situation. Interesting thoughts on centred vocals from Pharos and perhaps part of the equation of what I am witnessing. I suppose no one has tried this themselves yet?

[Pharos]

W. r. t. voices, it is worth considering that much recorded voice is not well done, and this hinders assessment of the system's ability to reproduce any image of a vocalist.

IMO most films have appallingly recorded voices, most BBC radio is not good, and in fact sound has just become a commodity from broadcasters, made worse by the dialectic drift and poor enunciation.

Finding good material is vital.

[Barry]

What price operas?

[Gaz]

The whole soundstage thing is something I find fascinating.

People seem to forget (although it was mentioned earlier in the thread) that the whole thing is an illusion and as such is open to the interpretation of the listener, I personally am unable (regardless of the system or recording) to hear what is referred to as depth or 3D in a soundstage, I get the "speakers disappearing" thing but have never been able to place an instrument for hear anything coming from behind the speakers.

Interestingly I have challenged people on several forums to name a piece of music and explain where a particular instrument appears to be, then see if others agree, as yet only a couple of people have done so but nobody has been able to confirm that they hear the same.

[Light Dependant Resistor]

The whole soundstage thing is something I find fascinating.

People seem to forget (although it was mentioned earlier in the thread) that the whole thing is an illusion and as such is open to the interpretation of the listener, I personally am unable (regardless of the system or recording) to hear what is referred to as depth or 3D in a soundstage, I get the "speakers disappearing" thing but have never been able to place an instrument for hear anything coming from behind the speakers.

Interestingly I have challenged people on several forums to name a piece of music and explain where a particular instrument appears to be, then see if others agree, as yet only a couple of people have done so but nobody has been able to confirm that they hear the same.

The recording if well recorded, ( applying to acoustic instruments, or lightly amplified ) will capture the precise location of each musician. The soundstage therefore is not an illusion
rather is playing back the location of the musicians during the actual recording. To see this and hear this, ideally a photo of where the recording took place should accompany
the CD or other medium purchased. You will see and hear then the soundstage exactly, on a lot of ECM recordings.

As for depth coming behind the speakers, locate a copy of Geneis Trick of the Tail, the last 25 seconds with Phil Collins singing " Theres an angel standing in the Sun
freed to get back home of the last track Los Endos , should show incredible depth - maybe let us know once you have heard that.

[Gaz]

I know this might sound argumentative but that's not how it's intended

Of course it's an illusion.
It is an undeniable fact that the sound is coming from two boxes, there isn't really an artist/band/orchestra in the room with you. Those boxes can project sound forwards, left, right, and perhaps a tiny bit backwards. If a sound is louder in the left box this leads the listener to imagine that whatever made that sound is on the left etc, louder sounds sound closer, quieter ones farther away etc but that is nothing more than the listener imagining the placement of various instruments.

3D TV is exactly the same, the images aren't really coming out from the screen it is simply an illusion created to fool the brain.

[mikeyb]

3D TV is exactly the same, the images aren't really coming out from the screen it is simply an illusion created to fool the brain.

Arggh no, you're joking right?

TVs going back to the shop [emoji23]

[Macca]

The whole soundstage thing is something I find fascinating.

People seem to forget (although it was mentioned earlier in the thread) that the whole thing is an illusion and as such is open to the interpretation of the listener, I personally am unable (regardless of the system or recording) to hear what is referred to as depth or 3D in a soundstage, I get the "speakers disappearing" thing but have never been able to place an instrument for hear anything coming from behind the speakers.

Interestingly I have challenged people on several forums to name a piece of music and explain where a particular instrument appears to be, then see if others agree, as yet only a couple of people have done so but nobody has been able to confirm that they hear the same.

Try Jeff Beck 'Live At Ronnie Scot's' - I've heard that with front to back depth so realistic it was like I was at the venue. Can't get that effect on my system though. Assuming the system (especially speakers) is good enough you should be able to get pretty solid left to right soundstage though. It has been deliberately created by the engineer so in that sense whilst it may be an illusion it is an intended one.

Sinatra at the Sands is another good one for depth. Sinatra up front with the audience noise in front of him, piano off to his right and slightly back, orchestra behind that, arranged in a semi circle. All the cues to generate this are there in the recording.

I'll repeat that nothing should be happening in front of the plane of the speakers unless some weird processing system like Q Sound has been used. If the singer sounds like they are stood in front of the speakers that's a fail as far as fidelity to the recording goes, even if you might like it that way.

[Barry]

Try Jeff Beck 'Live At Ronnie Scot's' - I've heard that with front to back depth so realistic it was like I was at the venue. Can't get that effect on my system though. Assuming the system (especially speakers) is good enough you should be able to get pretty solid left to right soundstage though. It has been deliberately created by the engineer so in that sense whilst it may be an illusion it is an intended one.

Sinatra at the Sands is another good one for depth. Sinatra up front with the audience noise in front of him, piano off to his right and slightly back, orchestra behind that, arranged in a semi circle. All the cues to generate this are there in the recording.

I'll repeat that nothing should be happening in front of the plane of the speakers unless some weird processing system like Q Sound has been used. If the singer sounds like they are stood in front of the speakers that's a fail as far as fidelity to the recording goes, even if you might like it that way.

Yes that is a good one to try.

I don't necessarily agree with you that no part of the sound stage should appear to be forward of the plane of the speakers. With my Quad 57s, on some recordings, the performers can appear slightly forward of the speakers.