I seems that if you ask ten people what soundstage means you will get ten somewhat different answers.
What happened to the terms like distortion, dynamic range, flat response, and such ?
Sound stage seems to be a catch all term for everything and means nothing.......except the reviewer does not know what else to say except they sound nice ......and says "they have good sound stage"........ or....... have bad sound stage.
However no one seen to care or know why they might be good or bad.
I've heard people say that their 2 inch computer speakers had good soundstage.🙄
What happened to the terms like distortion, dynamic range, flat response, and such ?
Sound stage seems to be a catch all term for everything and means nothing.......except the reviewer does not know what else to say except they sound nice ......and says "they have good sound stage"........ or....... have bad sound stage.
However no one seen to care or know why they might be good or bad.
I've heard people say that their 2 inch computer speakers had good soundstage.🙄
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Soundstage is its own "metric", independent from the currently measurable stuff. Modern PC hardware is capable of varying levels of it, especially those using fairly decent fullrange speakers. It does not mean distortion is very low or that the system will thump you out the door.
It's probably not that they don't care, more like they don't know, and it sure is complicated. Sorry if this doesn't help.
It's probably not that they don't care, more like they don't know, and it sure is complicated. Sorry if this doesn't help.
It means a lot, actually - and it relates to distortion: low levels of "bad" distortion brings what is easy to call "soundstage" alive. And what it means is that it's easy to 'see' deep into the space where the musicians did their thing, and the full impact of added effects, like reverb.
Lesser quality of replay creates a very flat image, as in that the vertical plane where the sound occurs appears to originate from has no, 😀, 'depth' to it. Lowering key types of distortion enables the subtle clues about depth to start making sense, and the mind is able to process them to an extent such that sounds within the musical event genuinely appear to be located not only left and right, but also back and forth - hence a sound, "stage".
Lesser quality of replay creates a very flat image, as in that the vertical plane where the sound occurs appears to originate from has no, 😀, 'depth' to it. Lowering key types of distortion enables the subtle clues about depth to start making sense, and the mind is able to process them to an extent such that sounds within the musical event genuinely appear to be located not only left and right, but also back and forth - hence a sound, "stage".
I agree. Clearly, I can hear a "soundstage", but I do not know how to measure it. May be it is about phase and group delay from the speaker.
The way I would "measure" it is purely subjectively: make a recording of something creating sound, a musical instrument perhaps, in a space with normal levels of echo - at various distances from a single microphone: 5 ft, 10, 20, 30, etc. Adjust the volumes of each distance item such that the levels of the direct sound match, and mix the order of them randomly in a playback - obviously the name of the game is to get the distances right; the better the accuracy, the better the soundstaging is ...
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The best I have ever gotten from the ears of the world is it's about "timing" and "resolution". From the engineers, I get nothing, Some very high distortion (by modern standards) amplifiers/system components seem to have deep and precise soundstage, and are sought after even in the presence of some "harmonic bloom".
Those "high distortion" amps create a lot of "benign" distortion, but far less of the nasty stuff, "bad" distortion - people's hearing has no problem putting to one side the "bloomy" distortion to extract the key information, low level cues which are reconstructed in the brain to add 'stage' information.
Soundstage (well defined by fas42) is a very important aspect of sound reproduction.
I'd also like to comment on distortion. As used above one thinks the intention is "measured" distortion. The more general distortion, as in anything that differs from the input, is very important (lack of dynamic range & flat response are just particular distortions) is important, and speakers in general have, so far anyway, very high levels. Distortion as measured (Geddes has scientifically shown) is virtually meaningless -- such a large turn around on his part that he says to just ignore that section of his book.
I do know that, almost invariably, the ability to present a plausible soundstage almost invariably improves (if present on the source) after i EnABL a driver -- if we knew what characteristics determine the ability to do a soundstage, that would be valuable clues as to what EnABL is doing.
dave
Yes... but what exactly does soundstage mean in specific terms?
As the answers have illustrated so far soundstage seems to ambiguous term at best
As the answers have illustrated so far soundstage seems to ambiguous term at best
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My guess is that EnABL allows low level information to be more accurately projected into the air from the cone movements. My experience is that dynamic drivers, especially cheaper ones, have trouble, when cold, with the more subtle variations in the waveform - low level information - and my guess is that the suspension is somewhat 'sticky' at this time; the audible result of this is 'flat' sound, poor soundstage, mid-fi type of thing. My solution is to drive the cone hard, very hard, to condition the materials - and by the end of this 'exercising' a very deep soundstage can be extracted.
The EnABL treatment sounds like a different approach, but with similar result - makes the moving cone more capable of coupling low level information effectively into the air ...
The EnABL treatment sounds like a different approach, but with similar result - makes the moving cone more capable of coupling low level information effectively into the air ...
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Specifically, that heard sounds have a depth component, as well as a left to right one.
Good soundstage produces a sonic image where instruments and sounds develop shapes and positions in 3D space, even pictures you can almost see with the right memories to draw from. For the record, I don't believe the effect is truly unengineerable, I just think the right group of engineers and physicists with proper facility in measurement, maths, and programming have devoted the rest of their lives to figuring it out.
At least the Q sound engineers know how it works. If they didn't they would not be able to make the effects that they do. Listen to some Q Sound recordings on a good system and you will be very surprised!
One of the things that I believe affects sound stage is how well the speakers are matched. This means drivers, and crossover components. As for the effect to work at it's best both speakers must be working identically. This is only part of the equation though. If you put those very good speakers in an asymetric space then the effect will be countered.
There are a whole range of things that have to work together to get the cues that your brain interprets as width, depth etc to fool your brain into thinking that they are real.
Because of this complexity (and because everyones ears / brain combination is different) I would say it is very difficult (probably impossible) to come up with a generic measurement that can evaluate how good sound stage is.
Why do I say this? Because we have two speakers which working together have to try and fool our brain into thinking a sound is coming from a particular location. In real life the sound only comes from that actual location so each persons unique ear/brain combo has learned how to interpret that. When you change this to two speakers each persons ear/brain combo is going to be different, maybe one persons ears are more cupped, anothers more flat, these will pick up the sounds (and crosstalk) from each speaker differently and the effects will be more or less convincing. What speaker positioning works well for one person, may not work so well for another. So how would you make a generic test that could say that the soundstage is good or it is bad, this is something that is going to have a dependency on the individual listening.
You can probably get some correlations, ie most people think this speaker images well, and most people think this one doesn't and go for some middle ground but what do you actually measure? I think probably the best measurement I've seen (which wasn't specifically about soundstage) was the amount of cancelation achieved when playing one speaker out of phase with the other playing mono pink noise (measured at the listening position). This shows how well the speakers are matched, but moving the mike even a couple of mm either way changes the results.
Tony.
One of the things that I believe affects sound stage is how well the speakers are matched. This means drivers, and crossover components. As for the effect to work at it's best both speakers must be working identically. This is only part of the equation though. If you put those very good speakers in an asymetric space then the effect will be countered.
There are a whole range of things that have to work together to get the cues that your brain interprets as width, depth etc to fool your brain into thinking that they are real.
Because of this complexity (and because everyones ears / brain combination is different) I would say it is very difficult (probably impossible) to come up with a generic measurement that can evaluate how good sound stage is.
Why do I say this? Because we have two speakers which working together have to try and fool our brain into thinking a sound is coming from a particular location. In real life the sound only comes from that actual location so each persons unique ear/brain combo has learned how to interpret that. When you change this to two speakers each persons ear/brain combo is going to be different, maybe one persons ears are more cupped, anothers more flat, these will pick up the sounds (and crosstalk) from each speaker differently and the effects will be more or less convincing. What speaker positioning works well for one person, may not work so well for another. So how would you make a generic test that could say that the soundstage is good or it is bad, this is something that is going to have a dependency on the individual listening.
You can probably get some correlations, ie most people think this speaker images well, and most people think this one doesn't and go for some middle ground but what do you actually measure? I think probably the best measurement I've seen (which wasn't specifically about soundstage) was the amount of cancelation achieved when playing one speaker out of phase with the other playing mono pink noise (measured at the listening position). This shows how well the speakers are matched, but moving the mike even a couple of mm either way changes the results.
Tony.
i have only two descriptors of musical experience, enjoyable and non-enjoyable....
you do not have to be golden eared make a differentiation....
why, even live music can fall into these two categories....
you do not have to be golden eared make a differentiation....
why, even live music can fall into these two categories....
Note I wrote the comment above about Q sound before Andrew posted above me. I can't type that fast!! 😉
Tony.
Tony.
Hi there JDJ: I'd put "soundstage" in the same category as "fast bass"... maybe the crew who argued the HOM case for a couple years here on DIYAUDIO can resolve the matter for measurements needed to prove the existence of soundstage. ...regards, Michael
Soundstaging is very much a system issue, the most brilliant speakers will fail badly if the amplfier can't behave itself.
The 'ideal', achievable only when everything is in alignment, is when the 3D space is locked absolutely solid in the listening area, and stays that way no matter where you move in the listening room - completely to a side wall, beside a speaker, or even behind a speaker.
If you want enjoyment, then that measures up pretty well, 😀 ...
The 'ideal', achievable only when everything is in alignment, is when the 3D space is locked absolutely solid in the listening area, and stays that way no matter where you move in the listening room - completely to a side wall, beside a speaker, or even behind a speaker.
If you want enjoyment, then that measures up pretty well, 😀 ...
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