Speaker Imaging - Do you hear a line, or do you hear an arc??

The dog barking on Stereophile test disc 1 sounds well outside and to the rear of my speakers (diagonally back and away, pretty much into the front corners of the room).  I suppose that counts...

Dodecahedron.

When listening to a system you feel images well, how do you perceive the sound stage?

With my ears.

Do you perceive it as a rectangular space on which the speakers sit, or does it sound like an arc, going further back towards the middle?

With which recording?

Soundstaging should not be a line or an arc!

It should be ‘beyond the walls’ and with three dimensional individual images.
Not flat ‘paper cut outs’ staggered in space.

Best enjoyed in a dimly lit room, in the right psychological mood, with sonic clarity of good equipment.

It may be realistic or totally fantasy, depending on type of music.

The best speakers for big, realistic soundstage, are big panels (Magnepan or electrostatic), that focus the sound to a "sweet spot" like a lens.

In nearfield listening, dependent of the mikes engineering process on the audio record, image is between my speakers with a depth that extend beyond the wall (my speakers are at 10 inches of a wall with one almost touching a column(not ideal)...In regular distance listening the image float forward and with a depth, and sometimes sit at the exterior of the speakers and not only forward toward me...the rules is simple: speakers must disappear behind 3-d music...Then, nor a line neither an arc, but a 3-d sphere for each instrument in an all enveloping sphere behind my wall...


With my headphone the depth also is 3 d with each instrument in his 3-d space...They are so good that I prefer almost listening with them...Normally I prefer speakers to headphones...


Exept for the naturalness of the musical timbre of voices and instrument, I valued more imaging, and 3-d holographic... It takes me 5 trying experiment and purchase with headphones to discover only one to my total satisfaction and it was the one that cost the least money, then beware before buying... I owns 2 Stax. one hidfiman he 400, Akg 340 and AKG 701... My best was for sure the 60 bucks new Fostex TH 7 b...Modified and tweaked it best them all others on almost all counts...


I know now that money dont buy you necessarily the best audiophile system possible for the price, but tweaks will, cleaning methods for resonance, room treatment, controls of noise levels are paramount and imperative with any audio gear at any price, and acoustic controls of the room...