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AUDIO FORUMS >> General Discussion and Support >> Soundstage
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Message started by Burgermeester on 09/07/22 at 09:44:23

Title: Soundstage
Post by Burgermeester on 09/07/22 at 09:44:23

In the conviction that forums need new material from time to time, however inferior....

I keep seeing SOUNDSTAGE getting a lot of play in preamp and amp reviews. As in, "For the first time, with the new XYZ preamp, I could tell clearly when Coltrane was 3 feet behind and one to the left of Davis," etc.

Somehow I don't recall soundstage width, depth, instrument placement, etc. etc. mentioned all that much on this forum. I'm still waiting for my Decware preamp and amp, but do any Decware owners have a specific take on soundstage rendering specifically for UFO amps?

Title: Re: Soundstage
Post by JBzen on 09/07/22 at 10:13:35

Decware amps are capable of conveying the soundstage of media. It requires the media to be capable of producing it and in a close second the room acoustics. All the other components in the audio system further expand detail of the depth, width, and height.

Title: Re: Soundstage
Post by GroovySauce on 09/07/22 at 12:11:33

I'm going to echo what JBzen said. The DECWARE amps are masters of space and time...soundstage. The other components, especially cables have a large impact on the soundstage.

Having the speakers "disappear" is such a trivial thing for the DECWARE amps to do. When I read that on other forums, I'm caught off guard.

Playing Mirage of Deep - Talking to Stars. The song or whole EP. It sounds like the sound goes out forever in all directions. When Steve talks about floating out of your body this EP will do it in a jiffy.

Room acoustics play a huge roll in soundstage. Even with little to no acoustic treatment you can still get a very impressive and satisfying soundstage.

Title: Re: Soundstage
Post by JOMAN on 09/07/22 at 13:31:48

My summer distractions are over and I logged on to list a component in the Classifieds. While not intending to get back to posting as I did in the past this subject compelled me to post my thoughts on this FWIW.

What got me into this hobby a very long time ago was when I heard music reproduced in the stage or setting in which the performance took place. It was eerie. This is not about width, depth, height and projection. It's about experiencing an event in the space in which it took place. To repeat a response to one of my previous posts...you become the mic (Lon).

Yes the Decware components can reproduce this very well but it will be VERY recording and source dependant.

Recording: 5 basic mic positions with varying types of mics, the Blumlein method is one type. When done well this will record the spatial and time factor of the venue. Then you're source has to be able to extract it. When you experience this it will not be about width, depth etc and it will set you back on your butt.

It wasn't until TT the likes of the Linn Sondeck came into existence that this spatial/time information could be fully extracted and realized. Then comes the engineering which can purposely alter this information add to that that is the source, TT or DAC, which can be designed to artificially produce a stage.

I came across this in my recent evaluation of which DAC to purchase for my Lumin U2 Mini. Read and listened to reviews of Holo, Denafrips, Weiss, Schitt Iggy, DCS, Chord etc. In all cases all of the components were good with varying attributes/flavours. Various rendering of sound stage. Talk about getting frustrated!

I came across a review of the Weiss 501/502 in which a comment was made that while not being the last word in stage dimensions it did make one feel that one was in the studio (paraphrasing)...BINGO! No I'm not getting the Weiss 501/502 at this time even though I would love to.

I have experienced this from time to time with my ZDSD, ZROCK2-A, CSP3-A, UFO25 and Omega Vintage 8HO. But I don't expect I tall the time for the above reason. I also don't let it limit me to searching out only the recordings that have the, non artificially altered, space/time info.

But in the process of evaluating DACs I am looking for the ones that can render space/time information when it is in the recording and not just soundstage dimension.

Title: Re: Soundstage
Post by CAJames on 09/07/22 at 14:23:38

All good stuff in this thread. I'd just add the careful speaker placement is essential for optimizing the soundstage. I've been able to get a much bigger, better sound stage than I thought possible in my rather funky room thanks to really spending time experimenting with speaker placement. Of course Decware amps and Omega speakers and a pretty nice front end all contribute as well.

Title: Re: Soundstage
Post by Dana on 09/07/22 at 18:35:29

I can't find it but Steve posted somewhere a graphic representation of soundstage and musician placement.
I miss the search.:(

Title: Re: Soundstage
Post by cmdc on 09/07/22 at 22:32:01

After 16 months on the list, my UFO25 is still a few days away (#10 on the list for the last week), but I can confirm my experience with both my ZMA and my Torii Mk IV. Particularly with the ZMA, the soundstage can be incredible and unlike any previous amp I've had. Indeed, that soundstage is one of the things I use to test new cartridges and speakers/speaker placements in my system. For example, one of my test records is a Carlos Montoya flamenco album. Using the ZMA, when the cart is properly aligned and the speakers set up properly, I can hear the position of finger snaps and castanets projecting out into the room in a horseshoe pattern. I can hear the heels of the flamenco dancers as they move forward and back in the dance hall. If I don't hear those things, then I know the cart or speakers aren't fully set up yet, because I know the ZMA can do it. Those spatial queues are even stronger on something like Dark Side of the Moon, where I can track the feet and breathing of the runner as he not just crosses the soundstage but actually runs in a discernible ring. And with relatively rudimentary room treatment, the soundstage got both deeper and wider, extending well beyond the walls of the room in every direction. I've had other amps produce the same horizontal movement without giving anything like the sense of depth. But, as others have noted, what you hear will also depend on how well the source material is recorded and mixed.

Title: Re: Soundstage
Post by Steve Deckert on 09/09/22 at 04:10:37

As a weekend experiment for those who want to explore soundstage -- the best way to hear a sound stage in your room is to pull your speakers well into the room to create a small triangle in the middle of the space. Point the left speaker directly at your right shoulder, and the right speaker directly at your left shoulder. Sit on the edge of your chair and lean forward. You can be as close as say 4 feet away from the speakers, the speakers can be spaced as close as 4 feet or as far as 8 feet so long as you point them correctly.

When I developed the original amps for Decware in the 90's I had a 150 year old house with three adjoining rooms, a 6 foot doorway centered in the wall leading to the second room which had two large doorways leading to the third room. I used my Decware Corner Horns on either side of this 6 foot opening which fit nicely between the opening and the side walls. I would sit where the sound crossed behind my head and would have line of sight 32 feet of depth. In the first room past the opening I put a grand piano just to look at while I played grand piano recordings. The bench of that piano fell 11 feet behind the plane of the speakers.

The room became a tool for evaluating sound stage depth. Basically how far back do the sounds render. A good sound stage in that room went back the full 32 feet. But that was only on amplifiers that used zero negative feedback. With feedback on a switch we could take a sound stage in that room where half the band was well behind the piano going back another almost 20 feet, to having the entire recording smashed into a depth of 6 feet behind the speakers putting it well in front of the piano! It was one of my favorite rooms, and is still the king of depth. I miss it, but that is where the TORII design came from and the Zen Triode as well. That is why those amps didn't have feedback.

It's funny, those test amps with feedback switches out in the real world setting on a cabinet with speakers against the wall did absolutely nothing to the sound stage because it is impossible to have a sound stage with a giant reflector between the speakers, like a wall. The only thing you heard happen when you flipped the switch is the sound got 6dB quieter. In my old listening room when you flipped the switch you were so distracted by the rear of the sound stage rushing forward towards your face that you didn't even notice it got quieter until after the shock wore off.

Soundstage is what changed me from a music lover with a pair of Bose 301 speakers bolted to the ceiling in the corners of the room to a tormented audiophile. Hearing that first 3D soundstage was so over the top and unexpected that it hooked me for life. Started Decware in fact.

Now I realize that frequency balance and timbre, dynamics, tone, vibrancy, delicacy, etc. are far more important. I have had systems that on a lot of music would image like you were in a time machine with the right music, but were in fact peaky which made other music unbearable. It's the 3D imaging on those certain recordings that is so distracting you don't care if the frequency balance is off. For most people it is not that hard to get a halfway decent balance in a room that has no chance of creating the holographic soundstage I talk about. That is normal because most of us don't have a bunch of spare empty rooms laying around.

Still, you can set any size speaker, large or small at about 1.5 meters distance from your face cross firing to your shoulders and close your eyes and with a Decware amplifier I can promise you will not be able to hear any sound come out of the actual speakers. In fact with a good source, they will actually sound like they are 10 feet away from you or more and it will sound like you are in a larger space than you really are. The first time I tried this, lead me to set up a bedroom system in a small space with full on room treatment.

Once you get this starting to happen it is time to get serious about cables otherwise it won't render. Holographic imaging is limited by the weakest link in the chain, and it can be any single connection, cable, cord, speaker position, source component or recording. Usually all of the above.

Steve