hope this isn’t a repeat, but I’ve found the most important factor that really kicked open the soundstage in my system, was placing speakers 28 feet apart, and 6 feet high in corners of room. the listening room is 28 x 14 feet, and the speakers on corner shelves special built for the purpose to exact dimension. the speakers project towards the other side of room, and the room has a vaulted ceiling that is 16 feet high on the sound receiving side. it is 8 feet high on the speaker side. what this does is create a HUGE soundstage on the high ceiling side of the room, and I can sit between the speakers and look at the high vaulted ceiling side and it’s like the band is right there in front of me, even though the speakers are on either side of me facing forward, the same way I’m facing. or, I can sit on the other side of the room, and listen to the soundstage between the speakers as is normal and traditional way of listening. if I sit on the speaker side, I reverse the speaker leads to keep it right and left, because otherwise I’m listening the music backwards in stereo. but man does this work good. I stumbled upon it by accident and luck, the house I bought in 1994 just happened to have a vaulted ceiling living room, with stairway on one side going up to loft. it’s sort of like sitting in a theater with the floor being and ceiling being tilted down towards the stage, but I can sit where the stage is, with speakers on either side, and look upward into the soundstage, and it is GIGANTIC. the soundstage is 16 feet high and 28 feet high. you gotta experience it to know what I’m talking about, once you hear a stereo in a room like, this, you’ll never listen to one again in a box room with flat ceiling.
another issue is, the stereo must be single ended dual monoblock, I've tested dozens and the push-pull can come close but not quite. and the best single ended I heard was a 6bq5 tube, driven by 12ad7. it really was the last gasp for single ended hi fi stereo, the best little high powered tube they made, before going to solid state in the 1960's, a 6v6 just can't cut it. the old 2a3, 300b etc. tubes are very sweet, but lack the bottom end power needed to play 1950 to present rock music accurately. they end up thin sounding, but are great for light acoustical instrumentals and female voices.
