All components seem to impart a certain perspective on the music. Their particular limitations, along with strengths and weaknesses. Some components are naturally laid back, forward, exhibiting depth of stage or width of stage or both. Some combinations present music more toward the listener while others seem to be more recessed, creating a plane that is behind the speakers. And then there is the room interaction and speaker placement.

The stage, in large part, is created by the arrival time of the sound at your ears. Very tiny differences in the arrival time is processed by our brains, which are hardwired to process these time delays and differences in amplitude so we can discern location of sound. It's a primal instinct for survival.

Because sound has a fundamental frequency and associated harmonics of lower amplitude and differing arrival times at our ears, or in the case of naturally recorded sound, at the microphone, music can be reproduced with staging by reproducing those audio cues captured by the microphone or microphones.

I say all that to make the point that to get proper staging in your own room, you have to consider all the things that are impacting the sound that is arriving at your ears. Components can be tweaked and played around with, but the giant gorilla that has the most impact is the room and speaker placement within the room. That's assuming that the recording has the staging cues to begin with, obviously. However, that too varies wildly from recording to recording. Some recordings have natural staging while others have artificially created staging from the engineering, mixing and mastering employed at the studio.

My personal thoughts are to concentrate on the speaker position and room interaction because those tend to be fixed variables that once solved can allow you to evaluate the more easily changed variables like components confident that you are hearing them for what they are. It will also help you discern your own unique requirements for enjoying audio reproduction. It will also make very clear why evaluating gear anywhere else but your own room is rather impossible and rife with pitfalls.

If I'm not mistaken we held a soundstage summit here on this very forum, I'll see if I can post a link to the thread. Soundstage and How to Get It would make a good title for book. A very long book.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

I have far greater issues with the varying quality of recordings than I do the format of the recording. However, this is to be expected considering my tastes in music span many genres and labels.

Because speaker placement has such an effect on frequency response, I do consider it to be a very important part of the whole sound. If that part is compromised, then room treatment becomes even more important to counter the problems being created by the speaker placement.

Some speaker designs are meant to be placed near walls, but the majority aren't. Wilson's Duette, is an example of a speaker that was developed with sub-optimum placement in mind. And the Duette projects the stage quite forward into the room while giving a very good sense of depth between the forward sound and the back of the stage. It's not so much that the stage has depth as the difference between its forward projection and the location of the source point is quite large. By pushing the sound out into the room, it gives the illusion of greater depth into the stage.

In my experiece, very few speakers will preserve a sense of stage depth when placed so close to the front wall. That's also a common shortcoming of modest solid state amplifiers of the British flavor. They tend to give good width without much depth. They often times have a very laid back personality to begin with.

As with everything in audio, compromises are rather personal in nature, but there are always trade-offs being made and discovering which ones you can live with has to be discovered by each individual. For me, I can't live with mosfet amps, but deal with bi-polar designs much better. Better still, tube amps give me what I want.

Speaker brands that are famous for staging usually have narrow baffles and drivers that are installed very close to one another. That's one of the benefits of using bookshelf speakers in that they have drivers mounted very close to one another and usually have superior imaging characteristcs. Less reflected surface area aids in imaging.

It's hard to offer solid advice without knowing the capabilities of each component. Any component could be limiting in producing a nice stage depth.

You asked how I have my system set up. I have two, each a little different, but both with speakers well into the room and away from walls. In my 15x19 room, the speakers are almost 7' from the front wall and just under 4' from each side wall. I use Dynaudio monitors placed 6' apart and sit about that far from them. That places my listening position about 6' from the rear wall and in the back third of the room. Bass response is impressive given the speaker size and avoiding sitting near the center of the room where bass response tends to be minimal.

My other room is an even more nearfield situation, which removes almost all the room problems from the listening position.

Having tried dozens of component combinations over the years, I've learned what I need from my gear and where I want to go when I decide to spend serious money on the room and which components to go in it. Until I decide to make that leap, I'm quite happy with the compromises and limitations of my music. But, make no mistake, it's an adventure in compromises based on my tastes and the music I enjoy listening to.

I can't think of a single component that I have had that was a universal improvement over another. Often times the improvement had to be weighed against the things it didn't do as well as the other. The same could be said with speaker placement. Where I might find placing a speaker near a wall to improve bass response at the expense of linear frequency response and imaging undesirable, I can fully appreciate that someone else might find the visceral impact of the lower frequency extension an agreeable trade-off, especially given the type of music we each listen to. The right answer is different for each of us, but it's no less right for either of us.

As fate would have it the subject of soundstage on this forum is buried within threads that do not bear the word soundstage. Unfortunately, unless I'm mistaken, the new forum here does not provide a search tool so that instances of "soundstage" can be identified. However, the threads can be searched manually, but that takes time. To summarize my thoughts briefly, I have to run, soundstage is primarily a function of Signal to Noise Ratio and Dynamic Range. No, I'm not referring to SNR and DR that are provided by equipment manufacturers. I'm referring to the de facto SNR and DR one actually can achieve in his particular set up. So, where do we go once we get some really good equipment in the room and hook it all up? What do we have to do to open up that soundstage like a can of sardines? To get true transparency, flesh out the instruments and singers, obtain some height to the soundstage? All these things we strive for. It ain't easy, otherwise everyone could do it. Lol. If I made a list it would be a long list. I think that one can go as far as budget and motivation will take him. Think of the soundstage as being analogous to the Big Bang, in the beginning things are plasma and not well defined but as time goes by and the sphere of the universe expands outward things take on more definition and mass and resolve themselves into galaxies, black holes, nebulae, and planets. The sky's the limit. For digital files I suspect a lot has to do with HOW THE DIGITAL FILES ARE CREATED, just like the universe.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

Bob Carver worked very hard at trying to address this exact issue and introduced a technology called "Sonic Holography." Here is the explanation from Carver Corp of what prevents a 3D soundstage and how "Sonic Holography" can correct it

The goal of sonic holography is to remove distortions in pitch caused by the doppler effect while recording and playing back audio on a sound system. While an audio source is recorded by a microphone, the membrane that picks up sound vibrations moves towards and away from the source. This results in a doppler shift that is preserved in the recording. When that recording is played through a speaker, the cone vibrates back and forth in order to move air particles and create sound. This introduces a second doppler shift, especially when the same cone is producing multiple frequencies at the same time. Both instances of doppler distortion degrade the overall quality of the output. Sonic holography attempts to remove these distortions using a proprietary filter designed by Bob Carver.

I will say this, owning Carver units in the past, this is a really interesting bit of technology. The reality is, its a filter which many audiophiles reject as "unpure." If you are in that camp, seeking out a vintage carver Sonic Holography generator or looking at a vintage Carver Pre-amp is a moot idea. That is a legitimate method to try and achieve this.

The alternate and more pure approach is to consider room treatments. A big issue is the amount of time it takes for sound reflecting off the walls and ceiling to reach your ears which can cause the sound to be enhanced or flattened depending on your room, speakers, spacing, etc... The explanation of Why Sonic Holography and the Doppler effect to me indicates that room treatments could have a very positive impact.

Other options include varying your speaker style. I think Maggies are an interesting and very good idea though I don't think you can drive MMGs what that little Creek. You will need more power. Some of the best sounding speakers I have ever heard were the Carver Amazings which were truly revolutionary. Here is the original review from 1990 of the Amazing Platinums. Maggies to me have a similar sound profile.

http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/290carver/index.html

Bob Carver was obsessed with producing a true, three dimensional sound at reasonable prices. He made some truly extraordinary innovations. I still regret buying Infinity Kappa's over the Amazing III Plus's.

If a digital file is created by ripping a CD then the quality of that digital file is a function of a whole number of things, just like the sound quality when playing a CD is a function of many things involved with how the laser reads the physical data. Caveat: I do not rip files myself but some of my customers do. Besides, it really comes down to how the laser reads the data in either case. I'm pretty sure there are other ways to obtain a digital file, but can't say whether there are similar variables involved where one might better results one way over another. What I have in mind when I say all this is really two things primarily - reduction of vibration and reduction of scattered laser light. There are other things, too, but those two are easy to solve and implement. Best if all they make sense. Lol

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

It doth appear two new topics are need immediately if not sooner. One is Soundstage the other free tweaks.

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica

I think your logic is spot on. It sounds like you have pushed your system to its very limit and your aren't satisfied.

IMO...your list is right. Your order might be wrong.

I would start with E - room treatments, as it is likely to be the least expensive and potentially the most effective solution.

If you are going to step up to a much more expensive DAC, I would make sure you buy from a place with a good return policy. As I said above, you are pushing your current system to the very limit of what it is capable of. I am not sure if your DAC is the weakest link. Besides Magnepan, you may want to consider auditioning some other speakers as they may deliver different performance in your room.

One I would recommend is Monitor Audio Gold GX50s at $1800. The ribbon tweeter gives it a very different sound profile compared to other speakers and I think it may deliver what you are looking for. IMO, it is worth your time to listen to them. They are available from Audio Advisor with a 30 day money back guarantee.

If you do opt to go down that path of Magnepan, Outlaw makes a nice monoblock for the money. You are not going to improve your bass response with maggies by moving them closer to the wall, you will need a subwoofer and you are going to want to get a decent, sealed sub so assume an extra $800 to $1000 for it.

As I started this freelance collaboration with a luxury magazine I have been fortunate enough to travel and listen to some mind-blowing systems...all the way up to 1 mil and more.
I only wrote a few articles so i'm not a seasoned hi-fi reviewer but regarding the soundstage here's what I found:
1. Speakers placed out in the room give best results.
2. For the same money (in low to mid hi-fi category) bookshelf spkrs are better than floorstanding BUT in absolute terms as u go up the pricing ladder floorstanding spkrs are much better
3. Bad news is that as I went up the ladder pricing wise the soundstage got better and better...my guess is that better components are just that more transparent.
When I listened to this 500k system w DartZeel monoblocks (130k a piece)..AudioResearch, Wilson Audio Alexa and more the soundstage was basically like watching a movie in the sense that it was so deep and precise that as soon as the band started playing the brain created this 3d image which was spooky to tell u the truth.
So from reading ur problem I do think u'll have to go higher up the ladder w ur whole system.
My 3.1 system is mid hi-fi but the money I spent on bass traps and acoustic panels made an improvement in soundstage and overall SQ of at least x10 their value.
Also I followed this advice given in an interview by GoldeanEar CEO which id the distance from ur seating position to the spkrs should never be greater than the distance between the spkrs. So if the spkrs are 9 feet away from each other u should listen from 9 feet or closer.
All of the sudden everything was more focused and the soundstage a bit deeper but less wider of course. I still look stupid standing on a chair in the middle of the room while the couch is 4 feet behind me but oh well I do it only when no one's home LOL

They are awesome speakes. The monitor Audio Silver line overall is excellent. Very neutral. Extremely balanced but lacks the detail of the level above. They are forgiving. I personally like a bit more detail. At similar price points I Like PSB better but I personally rejected both and stepped up to the next level,

My finalists for in-home demo were the Revel Performa3s, the MA Gold GX50e and the Sunfire Cinema Ribbon CRS-3s. I started with the Revels because they have he best off axis performance and were quite a bit cheaper. I mentioned this in another thread, my room has an awful layout and I wasn't sure if I wanted good off axis performance or bad. I love the Revels and they are a perfect fit for me and my space. They are very detaile dbut not annoyingly so like the B&W CMs. they are just slightly warm which I like and they pair very well with my Rega Brio R. I like the Revels so much, I never got the others home. The GX50s would have been less than ideal in my room due to the need to have great sound In 2nd and 3d listening position. The Cinema Ribbons would have been great but I would need a different amp.