Buddha
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General Ranson Raves...some Hi Fi questions.
Jeff Wong
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Joined: Sep 6 2005 - 3:28am

I enjoy imaging outside of my speakers. I wrote to Art Dudley years ago requesting instructions for his DIY silver interconnects and asked him for recommendations of recordings with this kind of imaging. He admonished me for getting caught up in such gimmicks, but, recommended Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets LP nonetheless (which I already had.) On my ex-gf's old system, "Little Atoms" by Elvis Costello, outside info appeared several feet beyond the speakers. I find a majority of these effects most often occur in the treble region -- the one exception that comes to mind is on Intergalactic Boogie Express - Live in Europe 1991 by Robert Fripp & The League of Crafty Guitarists, on track 7, "Eye of the Needle". There's a low note on one of the guitars that seems to come from 60-90 degrees to my right. It might be a phase error or just a weird anomaly in my less than perfect room, but, I dig it.

I remember an article in the Abso!ute Sound where Harry Pearson and Robert E. Greene went into this pretty in-depth. They may even have been arguing over it. As I recall, HP felt it made perfect sense that the images could be captured outside the speakers and had diagrams with microphones. I'm sure I've got the issue somewhere, but, not handy at this moment.

I tend not to walk around in my room when listening. My speakers are designed to be time & phase coherent, so, everything snaps together only in one spot. In my other apartment, I did try the Audio Physic Virgo style setup with the speakers on the long wall, halfway into the room with my head less than 24 inches from the rear wall. I rather enjoyed this configuration, but, it was impractical because of the placement. Images were almost completely divorced from the speakers, taking place in the front of the room -- it was odd to see the speakers almost completely out of the picture.

I also prefer images behind the speaker plane.

tomjtx
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Buddha, what are you smoking in sin city:-). I mean, that's almost as weird as my trips to the 3rd brane.

Jeff:

I too have my speaker on the long wall about 9' apart and I am close to the back wall with a roomtune floor stander in back of my head.
The imaging is great, both depth and width.
I plan to pull them even further apart, as far as they will go w/o sacrificing a coherent center. The soundstage is very big this way and I could never go back to "only" 6' apart.

Give me what Buddha's smoking and I'll be very happy.

JoeE SP9
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My preference is for imaging that starts at the speakers and extends behind them.
I have found that turning on my surround speakers changes the illusion to extend toward me and the room.

Monty
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My listening is done in the near-field and is severely limited by the size of my room in so far as soundstaging is concerned. How far outside my speakers imaging occurs depends on the speakers I'm using at the time and the recording. As much as I like a wide stage, and it is really appealing to me given my small room, I take it as a bonus and won't compromise other things to get it.

I tend to think it is largely a product of phase shift and the fact that this occurs in varying degrees between recordings can be rather artificial. Still, no doubt, some speakers are way better at tossing out a huge stage than others and all else being equal, I'd opt for the larger stage. I appreciate depth far more than width and it usually indicates a higher degree of transparency with the added benefit of coaxing you to listen more intently and deeper into the music.

My system projects the stage well behind the speaker plane and would be considered quite laid back. I have my listening position at the edge of the presense region...if I sit up intently I'm just inside and if I relax and lean backwards I'm just outside. I find this useful given the varying quality of the recordings I listen to.

That's about the extent of my moving the sweet spot around. I just don't have the room dimensions.

Your observations with regard to the planar speakers reminded me of the first time I stood between a pair of speakers after changing a disc and realized that although the speakers were directly beside me and I was facing the listening position, the sound image was clearly focused behind me, in the same place behind the speaker plane as if I were sitting in my chair. I found that to be very weird at the time and still think it somewhat amusing.

I like a laid back perspective in small listening rooms and a slightly more forward perspective in larger rooms and especially with hard driving tunes.

Yiangos
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Lot's of,actually,but don't ask me how or why.Usually it can be from 1 foot up to almost 4 feet and if you remember a post,earlier this year,there are certain recordings enchanced with certain techniques (q-sound) to do just that.
I have cds encoded with that system i can hear the sounds coming from behind and even though i know the records well,i allways look around to see if anyone walked in the listening room.

gkc
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In my experience, how far outside the lateral boundaries of the speakers the image extends is a function of the software (how the recording was miked), but only if your system is capable of resolving this information. My standard is still the live event, particularly in this area of spatial fidelity, since exact timbre and dynamic reproduction of the live event are impossible.

Many of my CD's and LP's (especially the latter) are capable of extending the soundstage laterally beyond the speakers. I don't hear anything "phasey," using my recollection of the live event.

The further back in the concert hall you sit, the more "telescoped" into the center the soundstage goes. This is also true of your listening room, although other variables apply (software, side wall reflections, etc.). This is why I like to sit fairly close to the action at the live event -- but not so close as to lose the sensation of a unified whole. At Disney, row 8 to row 12 works for me. In my listening room at my smaller apartment, my speakers are 7' apart (tweeter-to-tweeter), and I like to sit about 12' in front of them.

Front-to-back depth of image is easier and more consistently attainable, in my experience, than side-to-side lateral width. I, too, like to hear most of the action from behind the speakers, as long as the first violins and celli are at the plane of the speakers' fronts. Percussion and brass seem to naturally speak from the rear of my room, well behind the speakers.

I have noticed several spatial anomalies in live events since I first started to listen to the best contemporary home systems. How strange, that the home experience would influence how you listen at the live event. For instance, at the performance of the Schubert 9th, I noticed a distinct "hole-in-the-middle" effect, and this was from a perfect seat. Schubert must have wanted to hear this almost antiphonal effect. Don't always blame your system if you hear something beyond the textbook norm at home. It may have been written that way. Bottom line, for me? Live is the only standard, or you are fishing around in the dark when you effect system changes. Cheers, all.

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