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Moving from mid-fi to hi-fi -- Imaging questions

Hi. I am in the processing fine tuning the placement of my Magnepan 3.6's. I am new to the kind of detailed imaging these magnificent speakers provide. A few questions arise ...

What does it mean when I have excellent imaging but the instruments are in the wrong place? For example, I can pinpoint the high-hat cymbals and the snare drum but they are like 6 feet apart. I know from playing drums that that is just not possible. Also on drums, the distance when between tom toms is unrealistic -- like on the out edges of all the other instruments.

Sometimes voices are right on top of each other when I feel sure one is actually standing on the left and one on the right. Other times, the voices are clearly side by side.

I have a wide variety of cds, many considered audiophile grade. I am wondering if these are differences in the way the recording and or mixing is done. Overall, the music sounds great and imaging is exquisite but I want to get the most these speakers offer. Do I need to keep working my placement or am I reaching the limit of the source material?

As a side question: Is there any difference in the quality of manufactured CDs? I read once that some cds (BMG for example) were lower quality. I always buy my music used. Is there any difference in brands of cds? And down side to buying used cds?

Thanks all.
mcmanus

Showing 1 response by sean

sean
6,231 posts
 
Somewhere in the archives, i've posted several times on how to optimally place any speaker in any room. This is not to say that all speakers are suited for all rooms, but this approach will allow them to work as best possible given the specific conditions that you're working with. You do have to have a mono setting on your preamp though. I'm not that thrilled with Agon's search engines, but those posts are in there somewhere.

Other than that, you don't want the speakers the same distance from the rear wall as they are from the side walls. In terms of the imaging that you're achieving, Newbee was right on the money. You're hearing the imaging effects introduced into the recording via a recording engineer, not poor speaker performance. Sean
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