Is imaging the same as "sound stage" and does it require cleaner electronics?

Phelonious Ponk · Jan 13, 2011

Frank and I were creating massive drift over on the Devaliet thread, talking about minor distortions and their effect on imaging. This segues perfectly into something that has occurred to me often, that pinpoint imaging and what many audiophiles call "sound stage" are very different things, with very different requirements. Thinking I'm probably not the only one who has these strange thoughts, a new thread seemed appropriate. So here is my last post from the other thread, to get things started:

Originally Posted by fas42
Sorry to confuse you! Once experienced, the words I use to describe the phenomenon make sense; it's just a bit difficult to get the concept across at first ...

There are many variations to this sound experience, so I will try describing one of the other ones. Put on a true mono recording that is of very good recording quality, probably something from the 50's or 60's, that has a lot of depth to it, a good natural acoustic has been captured in the performance, where it is clear that the performers are not right on top of the microphones. Start by standing in the centre as if you had just got up from your normal listening seat, obviously the music will appear in the middle between the speakers. Then start shuffling sideways, say to the right, still facing directly in front towards the line between the speakers: if all goes well the music will follow you, meaning that the sound no longer appears to be coming from the centre of the speakers but is now closer to the right hand speaker, directly in line with where you're looking straight in front. If you look at the right speaker at this point you should have no sense of any sound coming from it. If all goes well you should be able to get all the way to the inside edge of the right speaker at normal listening distance with no sense of any sound coming from that right speaker.

Then, still in line with the inside edge of the right speaker, start shuffling directly forward. If you've hit the jackpot you should be able to get to totally next to that edge of the speaker still with the musical images directly in front of you, and no sense of anything coming from the right speaker.

Does that make sense and work with your system?

Frank

Got it. I thought for a moment that like America and England, we were separated by a common language . Not so. I know exactly what you're talking about and have heard it often without attempting to. I listen in a near field configuration and to a lot of 50s jazz recorded very well in mono. In the near field, there is no need to shuffle around. Lean one way or another and the music moves with you. Lean forward and the image moves back. With the speakers toed in a bit, I've even leaned in until my head was between them and was amazed to find that the music was still dead center, seemingly hovering slightly behind the speakers. This kind of precise imaging is not realistic in the sense that it is like a live event, but it is a remarkable phenomenon to behold, and I personally prefer it to what most audiophiles refer to as "sound stage," (all mileage is free to vary, of course) as I'm trying to reproduce the recording, not an imagined event. I also agree that while the drivers and the way they're put together is important for staging, electronic component integrity is critical to creating the effect we're talking about.

We're way off topic here and I apologize to the board for the thread drift. But after some initial thrashing about, Frank, I've really enjoyed the conversation. Perhaps we should continue it in another thread? Tell you what: I'll go start one called Imaging or Sound Stage? Perhaps some others will join in.

Tim

Phelonious Ponk · Jan 13, 2011

So what do you think? Are imaging and sound stage, while related, two different things? And does sound staging suffer inaccuracy (or even benefit from it) better than pinpoint imaging? What kinds of components/speakers/ set ups are best at each?

Tim

Robert · Jan 13, 2011

Pinpoint imaging does not exist in real musical performances. Ditto for soundstage edges, black backgrounds, and fast bass.

Whether soundstage requires accuracy is a circular argument. And the term accuracy is loaded. I would submit that soundstage requires both some acuracy and inacuracy, in the correct proportions.

JackD201 · Jan 13, 2011

That's a pragmatic way to put things Robert.

There's a thread here about audio terms we hate. I think the commonality is that these terms mean different things to different people or at least different people conceptualize them differently.

My concept of a soundstage is the area in the room where the images are. So a system can have a huge soundstage but still have poor imaging. Imaging is something I think of the same way I think of focus on a camera. The most pinpoint images to me are from a higher ratio of direct sound vis a vis reflected sound, or in stereo, when summing between left and right channels are at their highest potential thus a more intensely focused phantom image.

I can't really say which speaker type images better because there are both great and lousy imagers from horns on one end, all the way to omnis on the other. I suspect it might be more a matter of working to get whatever radiation patterns a speaker may have to sum where they ought to. If done right one should be able not to just get as sharp of diffuse a focus as one might prefer but also get height, width and depth within the "soundstage". I guess where this gets a bit muddled is that the size of the stage, the dimensions, are also affected as focus is worked on.

Anyway, that's how I see it but going back to how limited our lexicon is, I'm sure there are many other interpretations.

tony ky ma · Jan 13, 2011

Phelonious Ponk said:
So what do you think? Are imaging and sound stage, while related, two different things? And does sound staging suffer inaccuracy (or even benefit from it) better than pinpoint imaging? What kinds of components/speakers/ set ups are best at each?

Tim

My thinking is in a stereo system if the image only in three points left right and center,no matter how sharp it is, it isn't a good reproduction. good sound stage that you will find images out side of both speakers and positions in between, this one will provide lively feeling.
source (good recording) is the most importance, SE tube amp + horn speakers also the best for good sound stage
tony ma

Robert · Jan 13, 2011

My interpretation is that 'soundstage' represents a defined region on which the musicians perform. This is not the same as image size, and that is where it gets confusing. Some speakers cast a large image size, but are very poor at conveying a soundstage. So, sound which eminates from beyond the speaker boundaries, does not necessarily translate as soundstage.

wineslob · Jan 13, 2011

I think the two are related. However I don't believe in pinpoint imaging. It's one of the reasons I don't like horns or cone/dome systems.
Having lived with Apogees for several years, I think I've been spoiled by their ability to present physicality (Is that a word?!) to singers, instruments, etc. What some may call weight.
As one listener put it " you are listening to a man or woman singing, not a mouth". This is imaging as it should be.
Soundstage is the speakers ability to reproduce the framework of that recording as it was recorded and then with good imaging set the players in it in a realistic way. It's the old "are you looking through a window or are you in it?"
IMO it's a purely speaker "thing". All the electronics in the world can't make up for a speaker that can't image or produce a soundstage properly.

YMMV

microstrip · Jan 13, 2011

Phelonious Ponk said:
I listen in a near field configuration (...)
Tim

How far are you from the speakers and what is the distance between the center of the tweeters?

Phelonious Ponk · Jan 13, 2011

Pinpoint imaging does not exist in real musical performances. Ditto for soundstage edges, black backgrounds, and fast bass.

True. And this is why excellent reproduction of excellent studio recordings are often much more revealing. And because you can't re-create the excitement of the moment and the visual stimulus of a live performance in a reproduction system, I even find this kind of reproduction more "involving" and "musical" than the kind of presentation that attempts to imitate a live event from studio recordings and audiophile systems. YMMV on that one, of course.

Whether soundstage requires accuracy is a circular argument. And the term accuracy is loaded. I would submit that soundstage requires both some acuracy and inacuracy, in the correct proportions.

Fair enough. I think what Frank was talking about had more to do with noise and distortion than the more subjective "accuracy," but a lot of experimentation has led me to the conclusion that the cleanest systems, in the most controlled listening environments, deliver the best imaging.

Does anyone else prefer pinpoint imaging and driver control to a broader, more diffused sound stage?

Tim

DonH50 · Jan 13, 2011

This question has been asked and answered before (by various people in various ways). So, naturally, I couldn't find my answer with a quick search...

IMO, soundstage is generally the "shape" of the sound field, i.e. how sound appears to fill the listening space. Imaging is how accurately individual instruments (singers, sounds, whatever) are placed in the sound stage. Note "placed" has a dynamic element: if a piano moves around during the recoding, imaging may be bad. It's hard to tell for sure because we don't know what's actually on the recording, of course (e.g. maybe they wanted to piano to fly around the stage during playback, or maybe it did when they were recording, no way to tell). Anyway, and to me (and perhaps nobody else), they are two different things, and a system/recording may have a great soundstage and lousy imaging, or vice-versa.

FWIWFM - Don

Phelonious Ponk · Jan 13, 2011

microstrip said:
How far are you from the speakers and what is the distance between the center of the tweeters?

I'm about a meter from the speakers, which are just a bit further apart than that and slightly toed in.

Tim

muralman1 · Jan 13, 2011

I agree with my good friend wineslob. We went to see Chanticleer perform in a very large space, a cathedral. We were sitting right edge of their stage, and about 20 rows back. The singers didn't just stand there, they actions were free as any amateur choral group, singing to one or another sometimes. That puts mouths directing everywhere but at me, usually. Their singing was satisfying just the same. We got the true image of a choral group. Left and right have nothing to do with it. Generally, in a performance hall, we sit Grand Tier. These seats are close stage, but of one side or the other. The music is more clear than if our seating was on the floor. That is because the musicians are in a pit. The music and dancing are left or right. It is always believable, naturally. All musicians, and singers are omnidirectional. No detail is lost. The first time I ever heard an omnidirectional ribbon speaker, I was amazed the music image, a piano recital, never changed no matter where I was sitting, or standing. That is my cup of tea.

I find pin point speakers annoying. I don't like room correctors for that reason. You have to be sitting dead center. The image changes with just a heat turn. That maybe just what a lot of listeners may prefer. That is good, because there are a lot of speakers that conform to pin point imaging, forgoing the stage .

Gregadd · Jan 13, 2011

I agree. But horns do tend to be directional.

Phelonious Ponk · Jan 13, 2011

To me, it depends completely on the recording. My earliest stereo jazz albums were recorded in fairly large rooms with a handful of mics. The same with classical recordings, though in even larger rooms. They don't pinpoint image, even on active monitors in a near field set up; not even in headphones. This is as it should be. But most modern recordings, even live ones, are close-mic'd. There could be a half-dozen mics on the drum kit alone, and of course there is one for every singer, placed very close. It is the voice if not the mouth, not the singer, that is recorded, and the mixing engineer had that isolated mouth, with very little bleeding into the mic from other voices and instruments, and he panned it and placed it somewhere in the L to R image and got the approval of the artists and the producer on that placement. If my system smears that placement, through some imprecision in my components or my speakers, or through the reflections in my room, I consider that a distortion of the artistic intent, and besides that, I find pinpoint imaging, hearing that guitar solo come in seemingly precisely to the left of the singer but to the right of the piano (and the speaker) to be a good substitute for the visual cues that exist in the live concert experience. YMMV.

Others consider the same effect an expansion of the sound stage, even something that brings them closer to the "original event." I pretty firmly disagree with the semantics of the latter, as Greg and I have discussed before. The original event is the recording, the panning, the placement of that voice in the L to R image. But if its alteration in your system or room makes it more "live" for you and brings you closer to the music, more power to you.

Tim

ack · Jan 13, 2011

Images exist within the soundstage... images refer to the size and location of sources of sounds and how distinct they are within the soundstage. Images can be flattened if the soundstage is shallow, squished if the soundstage is narrow, not life size if the soundstage cannot accommodate them, etc.

Realistic images have the right size and you can easily identify their rough location, if the recording is right. For example, the first violins close to the left but filling most of the hall, tubas far back to the right sounding big, the soprano right in front of you, tall, a point-source and loud, the tympani right in the middle but recessed a bit in the back, a loud bass drum whack a bit diffuse and filling the entire room (depends on the hall), etc. If everything sounds diffuse, your images are ill-defined (but still perhaps the right size) no matter what the soundstage is like - not necessarily a bad thing, e.g. sitting far back in the orchestra won't give you as well-defined imaging either, just a different perspective.

In general, not the same thing, but related. Getting life-size images from all sources of sound is probably very expensive to reproduce and I am not sure what sort of recording techniques and technologies would be able to give you that. Or, I haven't experienced it yet.

muralman1 · Jan 13, 2011

I am aware studios position the placement of players and singers. Great omni directional speakers have that too. The singer is almost always directly forward with players arrayed behind.

Oh, and a drum whack will not sound diffuse if portrayed correctly.

JackD201 · Jan 13, 2011

@Muralman. An omnidirectional ribbon speaker? If it wasn't a slip, I'd like to see one. THAT would be very interesting.

muralman1 · Jan 13, 2011

JackD201 said:
@Muralman. An omnidirectional ribbon speaker? If it wasn't a slip, I'd like to see one. THAT would be very interesting.

The five foot ribbon array is folded over the top and run down the other side. Some call it a bipole arrangement. It puts out a cardioid pattern. Preferably a Scintilla should be in a very large room. The speakers should be well off the back wall, and side walls. I am sitting at a far left corner of the room. I am outside the left speaker. If I don't look over to the speakers, there is no clue I am not sitting middle. The sound is just as fulfilling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardioid

JackD201 · Jan 13, 2011

You're saying Scintillas have Bi-pole tweeters, Dipole midrange and bass and the result is a cardioid pattern? Really????

Gregadd · Jan 13, 2011

Sound staging and imaging are not really my thing for precisely the reasons Tim points out. For the most part it is hit or miss. When done right it contributes to the illusion of reality. When done wrong it can be very annoying. For example when the same instrument ping pong back and forth from left to right. Unfortunately many systems and rooms are incapable of supporting a credible soundstage or image. Even worse the recording engineer (assuming the recording was not done in somebody's garage) has already decided everything for us. Luckily for me I like jazz trios, quartets and quintets. Not particularly challenging or annoying if you err a little. Pity the classical music lover with a small room and small speakers. In my situation having the vocalists stand out front of the band or slightly to either side does not seem to be that big a problem. Often the drummer either picks up his drums and leaves or the trumpet player sits on his lap. Frequently the musicians are layered from front to back on top of one another.

I found this: http://www.deltamedia.com/resource/stereo_microphone_techniques.html . It is a pretty good primer on microphone techniques.

I'm not really a believer in the whatever floats your boat theory. I think there should at least be a standard even if you don't choose to adhere to it.

Is imaging the same as "sound stage" and does it require cleaner electronics?

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