What is "Sound Stage?"

[NorthStar]

Music, where does it come from? ...The heavens? Up there, way high in the sky?
Is this where the true Sound Stage comes from? ...And with all the Ambiance from the angels?

:b

"Ambiance" is French for 'Ambience'.
And both words are accepted in the English dictionaries. :b

 

[RogerD]

Music, where does it come from? ...The heavens? Up there, way high in the sky?
Is this where the true Sound Stage comes from? ...And with all the Ambiance from the angels?

:b

"Ambiance" is French for 'Ambience'.
And both words are accepted in the English dictionaries. :b

Whew I thought I screwed up......again...

 

[NorthStar]

No Roger, you don't screw up, your 'soundstage' is quite solid.
It holds firmly in place (realistic space). :b

 

[treitz3]

I disagree with this definition. A soundstage in many ways is an audiophile anomaly. It is up there with the 'black background', 'pin-point imaging', and 'separation between instruments'. I hear none of these things in a live performance, just as I do not hear a wall of sound with a discrete boundary.

In a live performance, the music surrounds or envelopes you. There is no wall, edge, or drop-off. Performers do not have a discrete height, although they do occupy a sense of space with sound emanating in all directions. Harmonics interact and summate between notes and musicians, so the music needs to congeal as well.

I do hope you are kidding.

In a live performance, you can have a black or "blacker" background between performances and venues. For example, having no commercial A/C's running, the audience being stunningly quiet, no amplifier hum or hiss, etc.... In a live performance, you can have pinpoint imaging. Happens all of the time, so I can't really relate to where it is you are coming from. When I go to an unamplified performance, I can clearly tell where the sax is in relation to the harpist or guitar player. This, admittedly, is not so much the case with an amplified performance. It seems to me, most amplified performances aren't geared toward sound quality, just SPL levels. Still, there is separation between the individual instruments....unless you are talking about being able to pick out one violinist among 30 that are all playing.

Also, with a live performance either amplified or not, you should clearly be able to tell from reflections whether or not you are in a small nightclub, a gymnasium, a concert hall or an open venue. Each one has a clearly distinct characteristic and sound signature, if you will.

Performers can also have a height. They do in a live performance and is dependent upon where you are [the row or tier/section you are in, looking up to the stage or looking down at, etc...]. A good system will include this in the playback. You should be able to tell [unless the recording has been butchered to all hell and back] where the stage height is. I have recordings to where I'm looking down at the stage and I have others to where the stage is at ear level and others to where I'm about 3 or 4 rows back, looking up on stage.

All of this has everything to do with the sound stage and is a very critical and important part of the reproduction, at least it is to me.

 

[RogerD]

Also there is the 3D holographic projection soundstage. Not only do you hear a detailed and very structured sound picture from behind the speakers,but the same happens foward of the speakers. The music projects far into the room and gives a feeling of density to the instruments,players,and singers. You have to have very fast amplifiers and a almost perfect coherent sound field to get a soundstage like this. I have only heard this on a very low distortion.low noise system and it by chance has been on digital recordings. The best example is Neilson's Alladin on Chandos.

 

[NorthStar]

Also there is the 3D holographic projection soundstage. Not only do you hear a detailed and very structured sound picture from behind the speakers,but the same happens foward of the speakers. The music projects far into the room and gives a feeling of density to the instruments,players,and singers. You have to have very fast amplifiers and a almost perfect coherent sound field to get a soundstage like this. I have only heard this on a very low distortion.low noise system and it by chance has been on digital recordings. The best example is Neilson's Alladin on Chandos.

Some loudspeakers (Stereo pair) are apt at that. :b

* Steve might indeed have a pair of these as such. :b

And yours Roger seem to be pretty good as well.

Mine, nah, but they aren't too bad at holographically propelling that 3D sense.
{What helps furthermore though is Audyssey with two well positioned subwoofers in my own room.}

 

[treitz3]

....just SPL levels.

Man, I just did what earks my own nerve to all of you. This is as moronic as saying "the LED light..."

I apologize, fellas. It's late, I'm tired and it's been one heck of a week. I'll do better, I promise. Please forgive me with this one.

Enjoy the music.

 

[fas42]

Also there is the 3D holographic projection soundstage. Not only do you hear a detailed and very structured sound picture from behind the speakers,but the same happens foward of the speakers. The music projects far into the room and gives a feeling of density to the instruments,players,and singers. You have to have very fast amplifiers and a almost perfect coherent sound field to get a soundstage like this. I have only heard this on a very low distortion.low noise system and it by chance has been on digital recordings. The best example is Neilson's Alladin on Chandos.

Roger, I may be misunderstanding what you're describing, but it sounds similar to what I might call the uniformity of the sound field in front of the speakers. This is part of the the experience when the speakers disappear, and it relates to the fact that you can move around in various directions, sideways, back and forth in front of the speakers and the sound "landscape" doesn't alter, at least subjectively: it forms a coherence which is rock solid in its presentation. Does this description resonate with you?

Frank

 

[Soundproof]

There are some puzzling comments about the character of live symphonic music here - with some claiming that one can not discern the source of the individual "instruments". I have listened to symphonies, chamber and vocal works in concert halls around the world, on numerous occasions. The character of localized information will change, but it's only very rarely been indistinct, and may then have had as much to do with seating as with acoustics.

We're not down to the sniper-like pin-pointing that is so much favored in audiophilia. In a proper acoustic environment you will be receiving a mix of direct sound, early and late reflections - preferably creating a corporeal aura around the tones you perceive. And because the goal is to blend the instrument groups into a whole, you don't want to create a setting where you are listening to individual instruments. (As in the hifi-trope: I can distinguish between the 1st violinist, and all the way down to the violas, counting off each musician).

But - it's a rare hall where instrument sections are NOT clearly defined, and when various 1sts get soli, without expection I can close my eyes and identify where they are, almost without regard to which hall it is. But it is a richer depiction of the sound than that achieved in most hifi-systems I listen to, where the predilection is towards pin-pointing of source and elimination of room interaction, leaving one with a very sparse interpretation of the orchestral experience (quite often).

One element that the reflection-poor and pin-pointed hifi-system foregoes, is the depth of perception available to a listener in a real concert hall - that depth is the result of the balanced interplay between direct sound from a source and the early and late reflections, with the orchestra hall sound stage in the best cases totally enveloping the listener.

Then there are alternatives. I have been inside the studio where Lindberg of 2L does the final touch-ups to the 2L recordings. He has an AES/EBU 5-channel full-range set-up, with two speakers to either side back, and three speakers L/C/R in front. All speakers identical. When he plays back his full resolution 5-channel recordings inside that room, you can literally walk around inside the sound stage created there, and experience instrumental contributions in a 3D-sense. Very removed from the performer/listener convention, but extremely engaging. That soundstage is comparable to walking about among the members of a chamber orchestra as they are performing - without any sense of the sources dropping off in strength in an unrealistic manner as you move around (as you experience when you shift relative to a two-channel sweetspot).

The 2L loudspeaker configuration follows that of the AES/EBU standard:

With five of these delivering towards the listener, who becomes listening location independent, if inside the configuration.
http://www.oslo-audio-society.com/html/vi_har_besokt/LindbergLyd/bilder/IMG_8025L2_.jpg

The front array: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NcmBqqJnY...P4/wOeVZQrUd34/s1600/Lindberg_Lyd_04small.jpg

I have some personal notions as to how a wall-of-sound configuration with manipulation of the early and late lateral reflections can enhance the listening experience, and intend to implement this in my next listening room, after experiments in the one I have now. These notions run totally counter to the focused beam and dampened side reflections much favored.

ISOMIKE do some interesting things with their setup:
http://www.russandrews.com/article-Isomike-Recordings-isomike.htm

 

[Robert]

There are some puzzling comments about the character of live symphonic music here - with some claiming that one can not discern the source of the individual "instruments". I have listened to symphonies, chamber and vocal works in concert halls around the world, on numerous occasions. The character of localized information will change, but it's only very rarely been indistinct, and may then have had as much to do with seating as with acoustics.

We're not down to the sniper-like pin-pointing that is so much favored in audiophilia.

This was my point that many in audiophilia seem to favor the pin-point, cut-out, precise imaging that just does not exist in a real performance. Yes, a stereo should permit you to point to the individual musician location clearly and consistently. However, a musician projects a sound field that eminates from that point quickly to becomes quite diffuse. I think we are talking about the same concept, just in matters of degree. Too much or too little and the brain should reject the illusion.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I've always had some problems trying to differentiate between what "imaging" and "soundstage" means. To me they cross-over and I sometimes think either or both words could be used when describing it. To make it easier on myself, and foregoing whatever anybody else says, I have come up with my own interpretations that are entirely non-scientific .

Imaging = Width
Soundstage = Depth

Both can have good seperation and placement, whether in the horizontal or vertical plane, and that's where my confusion comes in. If they do, what do I call that?

 

[treitz3]

Sonic bliss?

 

[Soundproof]

Soundstage serves well to describe width, depth and heigth - I see no reason to indicate that Imaging deals only with width; and Soundstage is an established term in acoustics, describing the three-dimensional properties of the sound field perceived.

BTW - for what it's worth: John Culshaw, of Decca fame, was adamant, to the point of being livid, that stereo - can not, will not, is incapable of - depicting vertical information. One could claim that this is due to the speakers he was relating to at the time, but some serious set-ups were created by Decca for demos, so I doubt that's the reason.
Culshaw makes a particular point of this in his book "The Ring Resounding". At the conclusion of Das Rheingold, the Rhine Maidens are heard singing from under the surface of the river, and Culshaw knew that there was no way of capturing that in a stereo field. So he cheated - he described how Decca had gone to great lengths to achieve this depth of projection (solved in Bayreuth by the singers going into the orchestra pit, and by Culshaw through trickery).

p.98 of Ring Resounding, Viking edition:

Stereo will do anything you want on the lateral sense, but it cannot give you a vertical perspective. But sometimes, there are ways of compensating: there are ways, quite frankly, of cheating the ear into informing the brain that it has received an impression which it has not in fact received. We worked very hard to get a special acoustic on the girls' voices and then, in an article published just before Rheingold was released, I drew attention to the way in which the voices appeared to come from below. In fact they do nothing of the sort, but the suggestion worked. One critic after another commented on the remarkable illusion, and letters poured into the office asking how it had been done.

As long as microphones are placed on a lateral plane, they can not register a vertical differential, while registering a horizontal ditto. But with tall speakers, where the mid-tone, treble is placed high up on the speakers ...

 

[bblue]

I get imaging. It happens in all directions and is primarily a function the recording and the mix -- the engineer pans the stereo image of the elements of sound, placing them in the L to R plane. He uses mic choices, placement, studio ambience, processing and, mostly, volume in the mix, creating a sense of depth. Assuming - and this is a huge assumption these days - that the mastering engineer doesn't throw it all away at that stage, and all of this is done really well, you should have a recording with a reasonably good illusion of space, even if it was all recorded in a small studio. Playback electronics can, in my view, only subtract from the recording. If you switch one relatively transparent (another "what is" if there ever was one) DAC for another and hear a dramatic expansion of the sound stage, enjoy that, but it's expectation bias. And if, in a perfect theoretical world, your electronics get out of the way, the engineer's creation of space should reach your speaker terminals.

Then all hell breaks loose and all bets are off.

So is the difference between imaging and sound stage something that happens in the interaction between our speakers and our rooms? Is it entirely a creation of our systems, dependent upon, but not a part of the recording itself?

Enquiring minds want to know....

I'm convinced now. Tim is a troublemaker!

Personally, I don't believe on a two channel system, that the room should play any role in enhancements to try and recreate another environment which then adds to whatever is played. That is an exercise in futility and only very vivid imaginations will think that it sounds like the real thing.

The room should get out of the way and allow what is being presented by the system to stand on its own. THAT is the soundstage that is created by the engineer. It's primarily between the L and R channels. If there is any height of image involved it's either because the speakers are very tall, or the room is reflecting higher frequencies. As you start getting into out of phase signals you'll get the impression that the image might extend beyond the edges, behind you, over your head, but that's pretty much it.

But if you understand that, you'll appreciate what some engineers create and others destroy. It can be vary impressive and believable as an art form, but in no way representing an accurately portrayed live performance, recorded in a concert hall or equivalent.

My viewpoint and preferences come from an engineering and mixing background and point of view, and a realization of what is and isn't possible in two channel. Having a beautifully presented mix and sound stage layout ruined by room acoustics adding echo, reverb and other random effects, is a really disappointing experience.

Tim believes that less than ideal equipment can only detract from producing the correct soundstage. And I think that is mostly true ... It can skew the perception in a variety of ways, depending on just what is wrong/limited/exaggerated by that equipment. Sometimes there is an apparent artificial enhancement of the presentation which emphasizes spacial cues in such a way as to make it sound bigger than life, or super-detailed in some areas. Then the thinking becomes that that sound must be right because it's so alive, and everything should sound like that -- an impossible goal. It isn't accurate to the original. My goal in playback is to come as close to the original as is possible, understanding that a lot of the drama that some listeners hear and try to describe is really just a variety of playback artifacts.

Just the facts, ma'am.

--Bill

 

[RogerD]

This sound stage vertical statement that 2 channel cannot produce that illusion is false. When I listen to Enrico Rava's Third Man album,on several cuts his horn sounds like it is bouncing of my 8 foot ceiling. The same can be true of Richardson's recording Eternal Father II where the organ gives the illusion of being 16 feet high. Now my sattelite speakers are about 54 inches high and I have two other small speakers mounted above the outside corner of these. It is still two channel stereo be it a enhanced version.

 

[bblue]

This sound stage vertical statement that 2 channel cannot produce that illusion is false. When I listen to Enrico Rava's Third Man album,on several cuts his horn sounds like it is bouncing of my 8 foot ceiling. The same can be true of Richardson's recording Eternal Father II where the organ gives the illusion of being 16 feet high. Now my sattelite speakers are about 54 inches high and I have two other small speakers mounted above the outside corner of these. It is still two channel stereo be it a enhanced version.

Roger, there is no information recorded in two channel that can cause a phase coherent speaker system to produce the effect of height. If you have added speakers of unknown uniformity and directionality, or are utilizing room acoustics to create an image of height, fine. But it's not originating from the source, because it can't.

--Bill

 

[RogerD]

Roger, there is no information recorded in two channel that can cause a phase coherent speaker system to produce the effect of height. If you have added speakers of unknown uniformity and directionality, or are utilizing room acoustics to create an image of height, fine. But it's not originating from the source, because it can't.

--Bill

So Bill it is impossible for microphones to "hear" moving energy?

 

[treitz3]

Roger, there is no information recorded in two channel that can cause a phase coherent speaker system to produce the effect of height

Bill, all due respect to you but this is false information. Do yourself a favor and purchase Chesky Records sampler and audiophile test CD.

Listen to part two and you will discover that there is clearly height to a recording. Once you hear it, it will be indisputable to you.

 

[Soundproof]

Note that Culshaw writes:

But sometimes, there are ways of compensating: there are ways, quite frankly, of cheating the ear into informing the brain that it has received an impression which it has not in fact received.

We can use level, an increase/reduction of reverb and an increase/reduction of bass to indicate distance; and we can use the impression of ceiling or floor reflections to create an illusion of height.

But it's very important to understand that a regular microphone array can not capture vertical discrete time-shifted soundwaves - and that we actually have no playback system for the same, while we do for the horizontal (two speakers on the floor, not above each other). To capture vertical data, we would need to have microphones placed relative to each other on the vertical plane, and for their signal to come from loudspeakers that were also placed in the vertical plane, dedicated to this plane, in our listening rooms. We have speakers dedicated to the horizontal plane.
Our brains are very good at imagining where a sound source should be, relative to others.
Consider the center-channel speakers in a home theatre set-up. They're usually below the screen, but we "hear" the voices coming from the mouths of the actors.

Conventional stereo recording does not attempt to capture vertical data - and focuses on the horizontal timeshifts and level differences between sources, relative to the microphones.

However, the use of room tone and natural room reverb can enhance the perceived size of the sound stage, and thus appear to elevate certain sources.

Note, Culshaw (and humbly myself) are not saying we aren't hearing sounds that appear to come from locations along the vertical plane, it's just that they're not emanating from there - we're placing them there with our minds. (And if we have very tall speakers, with the midtone in the center and the treble on top, we are mechanically raising woodwinds, brass and voices above the ear-level median.

Culshaw wrote "Ring Resounding" after a nearly decade long recording bout on the Ring, while at the same time being chief recording engineer on over a hundred other major stereophonic productions at the Decca quality level, and he worked intensely with creating the perception of sources coming from various places in the sound stage - we may possibly lend his words a touch of respect. He's quite clearly stating that these vertical perceptions are imagined and manipulated, and that in the particular instance of the Rhine Maidens at the end of Rhinegold, he planted the suggestion in the minds of listeners and reviewers through his comments in advance of the release.

 

[treitz3]

What I hear on this disc linked above is clearly height, though. It takes a signal and [properly set up, of course] offers you the image starting about 4 or so feet past the L speaker and slowly raises the image upward to about 4' above your speakers [provided the room interactions don't cancel it out] in a half circle type pattern, moving over to 4 or so feet past the R speaker. I'm not discounting what it is you are saying, rather trying to understand more why there shouldn't be height, when clearly there is.

I'll put it to you this way. If I were to take a laser and pinpoint where the image is during the height test, it would make a perfect half circle [again, providing that the rig is set up properly and the sound is not cancelled out from reflections]. Then there are the recordings that I'm sitting below the stage and some I'm horizontal to the stage and others I'm above the stage. *scratches head*