What should you hear?


I'm new to the hobby and curious what type of imaging sound stage you should hear.  I have a pair of Vandersteen 2ce signatures and they sound great.  What I find however is that the imaging, sound stage is very dependent on the recording.   

Norah Jones?  She sounds like she's sitting right in the room.  It's amazing.  

One I'm particularly interested in learning more about is Brubek's Take Five.   The saxophone images great.  Sounds dead center.  The piano however is clearly coming from the right hand speaker and the drums are clearly coming from the left.  Is this typical? 

Thanks for your input and tolerating a "newbie" question. 
mvrooman1526

Showing 4 responses by larryi

From your description, it seems like you are getting good stereo imaging.  Certainly, your Vandersteens are capable of delivering good imaging. The subject of what constitutes good imaging and how to achieve it is quite complicated.  Almost all types of speakers can deliver great imaging, so it primarily comes down to speaker placement, the placement of the listener, and room acoustics. 

Speaker placement is very important, and the only way to optimize placement is by trial and error.  If you think you have decent imaging already, make tiny adjustments in speaker placement, and on toe-in, and even how much the speaker leans (rake).  Generally speaking, if you don't think the center image seems tight and prominent enough, you should try increasing toe-in so that the speaker is pointed more directly at you.  The tradeoff is that the sense of image width or envelopment of the listener decreases with more toe-in, so you are juggling compromises.  The rake angle will determine how high central images seem to be; generally speaking, the more the speaker tilts back, the higher the image seems to be.  Moving speakers further out into the room from the wall in front of you will tend to increase a sense of depth, and moving speakers away from side walls will tend to make the sound seem to float more freely away from the speakers.  But, sometimes, interference from a nearby wall can artificially create a sense of a wider soundstage, and you might actually like that; again experimentation is in order.

I try to avoid having a large flat surface, like a coffee table, between my listening position and the speaker; if that can't be avoided, have enough stuff on the table to break up the reflections off the surface into something more random.

I agree that imaging on some classical orchestral recordings can be quite impressive.  I like recorded music for that aspect of performance.  But, arguably, it is not that realistic because you almost never get the kind of precise instrument placements one has on recordings when hearing the music live.  If you close your eyes at a orchestral performance, you really don't hear as precise an image; you use your eyes to get the placement.  I don't care that much that most recordings are, in that sense, unrealistic, because I like what I hear.
Rodman,

It is true that one could find a seat up front that provies a nice stereo spread and allows one to aurally locate instrumental groups/soloists, but, that seat might not be close to ideal for other reasons--tonal balance, proper mix of reverberation, etc.  For example, in "shoe-box" orchestral halls, it is often the case that seats about 2/3 of the way back down the hall are better than up front.  Also, in any hall, the ideal seats would be a small portion of the total seating, so saying that everyone should spend more to get better seating simply doesn't work.  My point was that listening at home is a different experience, and in at least one aspect, the difference can be in favor of a good recording played at home.  But, of course, the whole experience of a live performance is, to me, much more enjoyable.  This is particularly the case with large-scale classical works where the power and scale cannot be matched by a stereo system.

For some other forms of music, such as rock, the non-sonic factors that make the experience enjoyable play an even bigger role.  Frankly, if my stem sounded as bad as the sonics at a rock concert, I would have long ago quit the game.
Mijostyn, 

You name-dropped a bunch of terrific sounding recordings and the music is good as well.  What is striking to me is how good many older recordings sound; it does not seen that recording technology has advanced very far.  When I want to demonstrate how terrific old stereo recording can be, I take out my original issue of Duke Ellington's "Blues in Orbit,"  a recording made in the late 1950's.  
Rodman,

As I said, if all you were concerned with at a concert is stereo imaging, you could sit up front, but, that might not be ideal for other aspects of the sound; that is why it is not simply a matter of choosing front four rows in the concert hall.  A good recording can give you the up close stereo perspective, as well as a decent instrumental blend, hall reverb, etc.  But, of course, recordings cannot come close to delivering the power and majestry of an orchestra in full song.  On balance, orchestral music, choral works and opera are the least satisfying recorded experience compared to the real thing for me.  I have rarely heard recordings that come close to the real deal.