Why a wide soundstage

When it comes to stereo imaging, how wide is too wide, and why?

[bestuurdvsgroningen]

My soundstage often extends beyond the speakers and I love it. Also, Arnhem is a dutch city surrounded by shallow waters. It's name comes from the vikings and translates to 'home of the eagle.' The vikings made it a main military base because their ships were the only warships that could navigate the shallow waters around Arnhem and thus they were pretty safe there from enemy attacks.

[aakar]

2:33 "whooow, listen to that" Perfect definition of an audiophile!

[RZig]

The wider the better in my view, as long as it doesn't sound disjointed. What I mean is that you basically want to hear the edges of the room ambiance in terms of what the microphones could capture within. That's why listening to electronic music can be a lot of fun what what can be achieved, because there are no rules in terms of which sound/instrument should be where. It always blows my mind when you see the speakers but the sound doesn't seem to come from them. That's what we all strive for in our systems.

[Jorge-Fernandez-Lopez]

More than one official academic degree! A lot of time and work to overcome all this years and exams at University. Congratulations!

[natickrepairs]

This great question hints at something bigger. Recorded audio is quite a unique media (for transmitting music). Like any media, it changes and has some peculiarities without regard to the message itself. Audiophiles and aspiring audiophiles are focused on these sensory aspects of our recording and playback process. It's the fun stuff that Paul speaks of.
Personally I find that imaging etc take away from enjoying an artist's music, but there are many different ways of enjoying audio - so everyone can be happy (as long as we don't focus on other people's happiness).

[tomtube]

Paul, I think you used a very helpful word near the end of your video - a “broad” soundstage. That captures the intent more clearly for me at least.

[bramvanminnen]

Arnhem is a city in the Netherlands famous from the WWII movie 'A Bridge too far' among other things. I recommend making time to watch it.

[vocalion]

I used to have the Apt Holman Preamplifier that gave me the ability to dial in anything from exaggeratedly wide stereo down to mono. I sure wish I could put something in my effects loop that would allow me to narrow the soundstage, or even go full mono, in recordings with gimmicky stereo effects or hard-panned voices and instruments.

[rickmilam]

I initially took the question to be more about the ability of a system to deliver a wide soundstage aws opposed to what the producer/engineers created in the studio. I'm a classical buff with center seats in the first row of the parterre section, about 1/3 back. I live in Kansas City and, as proud as people are of the Chiefs I'm more enamored of our ten year old world class performing arts center where Keith Johson of Reference Recordings works these days. The whole imaging and soundstaging thing has always fascinated me. How much is a audiophile quality vs. a valid reproduction of a performance? I use soundstage to describe what Paul alluded to - wide and natural space the music is emanating from with the instruments contained within it. Our orchestra typically puts first violins on the left, 2nd violins on the right so careful with that one, which is pretty common.

[bayard]

Thank you for clarifying this... seems my big rig is more on point than I thought...

[ThinkingBetter]

Live concerts are generally not a good reference for an audiophile high quality experience. I keep telling myself that my own system sounds way way better whenever I go to any major live concert. From my experience, the best audio fidelity is achieved by studio produced music and that includes the sound stage that is then entirely fabricated out of the individual tracks. A soundstage can have the intent of giving our brain the illusion that the individual instruments are in a certain position. However, I can also enjoy music where music comes more like from a 3D world and you feel very immersed in the music without sensing an actual stage. Some well produced electronic music makes you feel like sounds are from all sorts of directions and it can be enjoyable also. Try to find the sound stage of Equinoxe by Jean Michel Jarre, for example. This 1978 album keeps impressing me even so many decades later.

[cesarjlisboa]

The sound stage, must be in the middle, as close as possible for the real stages ; anything else it’s “ballooning “

[stimpy]

My ideal concert row is usually “N“. Depending on the concert of course. Sometimes I hear a solo or a trio jazz group in a large hall and then I usually want to be seated in a round row D through G. Thank God for my ticket scalper Tommy. He can get anything at any time just about

[skycracksopen]

I like to think of it as the audio "filling" your ears from different sides. Like when you eat a good meal or drink a delicious glass of wine, you don't swallow it immediately. You let it fill your whole mouth so all of the taste buds can experience it and you get the full effect.

[NoEggu]

@1:28 "...but not stretched out beyond [the outer edges of] the speakers."
Stretching is bad. But I like it when I hear vocals and instruments sounding like they are beyond the outer edges of my speakers. If a guest visits, they believe that speakers are hidden off to the sides.

And it is not a phony sound. It sounds real, like the performer is really there. I can't see why our host would not find that exhilarating. I do.

I am not talking about an unnatural, stretched out sound where no instrument could be that length. I am talking about it sounding like someone is there, beyond the outer edges of the speakers, and with vividly clear focus.

Listen to Black Sabbath's "Black Sabbath" song (first song on their first album).
There is a bell.

I have a white hot stamper of that song, that I played on a high-end system at my local audio store. They were using Clearaudio's flagship Goldfinger cartridge.
On that song, that bell sounded nowhere near the speakers. It was off to the right, and up in the air. But it was vivid. I have never heard the digital version do that with the bell -- certainly not to the same degree.

I also have an incredible sounding pressing of Madonna's Immaculate Collection, which uses QSound. Many of the songs have sounds that extend far beyond the outer edges of the speakers.

One example is for the song "Vogue". At the 1:05 time mark, there is a sound (don't know what instrument it is) that plays as far to the right as any sound I have ever heard. It is nearly directly to your right. It is spooky real. But you must play the QSound version, and it must be on a stereo capable of producing that illusion.

The digital version is decent. But the vinyl is much better. And I had to go through several pressings to luckily land one that sounds so good.

I am not saying that vinyl beats digital. I am saying that for the Black Sabbath song and the Madonna song, for those two examples, the vinyl wins.

So I agree with our host when it comes to stretching sounds. Loads of songs have that. It is unnatural, and ruins the realism, in this listener's opinion. But when done right, without stretching anything, it is amazing to hear the band beyond the outer edges of the speakers.

I never thought that synthesized music could be so captivating. But that QSound infused Immaculate Collection gave me a reality check. Not all of the songs are as captivating as Vogue. Various songs were recorded at different times, perhaps in different studios, with different personnel. QSsound's effect on each song varies, because the quality control with the initial recordings is not a priority in the studios.

[joelowens]

Some of my friends were roadies in the past. Each singer or band has various level qualities of gear and the venue also has certain qualities of gear at certain stadium centers. So they tend to marry the 2. Acoustics can be good in one venue and horrible in the next. Also if venue is enclosed or outside makes a difference. If it's super hot or humid or ultra cold can affect equipment performance and singer vocal performance. Another item is the engineer doing the adjusting on the boards for the concert. They will have their own flavor of bass, midrange, treble, and volume level for the venue they deem best and the band will chime in on what they like also. We have been to many dozens of concerts over the decades and have heard amazing venues and then those where engineers dialed things in horribly. General public goes to the venues and lots of them drunk and have no clue what the concert sounds like dialed in right it is fine with them the lights whirling and do dads and the singer going wild. They tend to care about much else. me as an audiophile I am looking at lots of items. Also the DB amplification levels the concert needs to achieve dictates volume of sound over the quality of the sound. I have heard some great concerts but they do not have the quality or purity of my in home system. Now you could get close in more of a dive bar jazz type setting with singer playing lower volumes. Two of our best concerts was BonJovi have a nice day tour when he was in his 40's in age and Richie still playing with the band. We were center floor just a few seats back. it was like they were in our living room and we were on the sofa and they were performing. Other one Lenny Kravitz where he came into the stands and light shined down on him and he rocked out on his electric guitar. It was magical. He did 2 hour concert and opened for Aerosmith it was long time ago (decades). Aerosmith not as good as we thought because Steven Tyler drunk around that time as after our show and few others he went into rehab.

[robertmoi]

Personally, I like recordings with behind-the-speakers soundstage and good depth and width. My system is not high end but I enjoy live recorded jazz and blues songs with instruments occupying their own space behind the speakers and the room captured as a dark background. E. g. Jazz at the Pawnshop, some B.B. king recordings, Dire Straits-your latest trick has great depth for the guitar track. Also, some live recorded drum solos with toms, high-hats, snare drum, and multiple crashes occupying their own space realistically from left to right of the speaker and some toms extending up to a meter diagonally beyond one speaker with good sidewall distance. Computer-generated music sometimes exaggerates the sound stage with pianos overhead, etc. or collapses it stacking instruments on top of each other. E.g. Vogue by Madonna has an unreal computer-generated soundstage with instruments and vocals above and to the sides of the listener.

[dannyfannyfoodle]

The only aspects of soundstage that matter (within reason) are depth, and a realistic recreation of ambient cues. I couldn’t agree more with this observation. The way most recordings are mastered with drums and keyboards being the entire width of the soundstage while guitars, bass and vocals are fixed in space is terribly unrealistic and distracting.

[joeb]

Paul: What are those aluminum-looking pipes coming off of the ceiling? What function do they perform?

[FOH]

Re distance from the performance;
For the best acoustic experience, one needs to be within critical distance ... so that reverberant energy doesn't override the direct energy.