Walk-in soundstage

When I added DSP, but not with every recording 

@helomech  Yes, a walk-in soundstage is indeed >/= 90% room and speakers. The majority of the remaining 10% or so is the amplification. I’ve heard enough $60K+ digital front ends paired with six figure speakers in enough rooms to know that the front end accounts for nearly zero of the effect, because many of those systems failed to produce said effect. Money ≠ equal performance when it comes to digital components.

I see it as counterproductive to keep this subject contentious simply because it’s not supposed to be. I can only agree with the “Money ≠ Performance” part of the statement, and I’m a strong proponent of that notion. I recently acquired two sub-$1k DACs—far from the price range you referred to—that are fully capable of producing a tall, wide, and deep soundstage with pinpoint-focused imaging. I don’t know which specific DACs or digital transports in the $60k+ range fail to do that effect, but if such units exist, it would be a huge pity to see that investment wasted.

I don’t pretend to hear what I don’t. Before acquiring these two DACs, all my previous units could produce a decent soundstage (SS) in all dimensions except depth. And believe me, I’ve already optimized my setup and speaker placement in rooms prepared to reveal deep SS once a capable DAC and digital transport were in place. After months of tireless experimentation, the day my R2R DAC and transporter combo was fully broken in, I could hardly believe what I was hearing from that combo—a soundstage wider than the speakers, taller in a way that mimicked an actual singer’s or performer’s presence, and most importantly, deep enough to feel as if you could walk into it. Without pinpoint imaging and a dark background, such a space simply doesn’t exist.

Of course, this experience doesn’t occur with every piece of music. As many have noted, the spatial cues must be present in the recording. Ultimately, it comes down to whether your gear can preserve and reproduce that information. As I’ve said before, if your DAC only produces a “wall of sound,” forget about a walk-in SS. And if your digital transport suffers from jitter or electrical noise, spatial cues will be lost due to timing errors.

Here are two specific music tracks that reproduce this effect in my listening spaces:

1. “Zulu Voodoo” – Kalya Scintilla, Illusions

2. “Flamenco’s On Fire” – Kalya Scintilla, Illusions

Let me know if you’d like more examples or different genres.

Speaker placement is equally important—on par with the digital front end, in fact. In my case, I pull my speakers 4 feet from the front wall (for depth) and 3 feet from the side walls (to avoid smearing from early reflections). The speakers are 11 feet apart with a slight 15° toe-in for my main rig in the living room, and 8.5 feet apart, facing straight ahead, for my second rig in the master bedroom. I’ve found these distances beneficial for widening SS and improving instrument separation. Finally, I have heavy window drape up front and bass traps but don’t treat the side walls, since I’ve found some reflective sound can help widen the SS—as Floyd Toole has also pointed out.

It all matters. You have to have a source that can reproduce the spatial cues inherent in the recording, amplification that maintains or perhaps enhances the effect, speakers that do not diffract or otherwise distort the wave and a room that minimizes spurious reflections. 

Works for me.

When i read such thread i measure how much most people had no clue about acoustics concepts and parameters...

A walk in soundstage is a way to describe the balance ratio between  ASW/LEV parameters if we learn how to control them...

 I created it  in my first acoustical dedicated room with my "mechanical room equalizer " a grid of 100 Helmholtz resonators mechanically tunable but we need a recording very well done to achieve complete "walk in" like the Weil four penny opera with with Lotte Lenya for example... No room/ speakers controls replace recording trade-off limits and possibilities...A bad recording stay bad even in controlled environment...

 I could not create it in my near field  actual location for many reasons linked to the speakers  design limitations and the impossibility to use my grid of resonators in my specific location.. My resonators work on "timbre" perception  but not in the same way  on spatial qualities,bunched together in a very small room and not distributed in a larger room

Neither with  my headphone, even if they give me "out of the head speaker like impressions" i enjoy a lot ... The K340 save my life when i lost my room...

Gave me 7,000 bucks and i will buy the  " dac " or best said the acoustic set of filters tailored for your hearings created by Edgar Choueiri in a battling of the eye...

No need to create a tuned 100 Helmholtz resonators precisely located around my room and listening position... Which task i cannot do no more because i dont have the room for it now nor  i want to go redoing this tuning by ears arduous task again on many months ...

@lanx0003 

I think ESL 63 has similar trait to 57, correct? 

Yes and mainly NO!

Both are electrostatic, so have no box around them to resonate.  The almost-as-light-as-air diaphragms have no overshoot unlike massive conventional drivers. Both are meant to be full range speakers.

But the original ESL (now known as the 57 because 1957 was when it was released) was not conceived for stereo.  It dealt with the problem of flat panels by curving them slightly about a horizontal axis.  It is a three-way design with three panels per speaker and crossovers and compared with modern speakers lies on its side.

The ESL 63 was conceived in 1963, after stereo records became commercially available, but the 63 was not released until 1981.  One of the objectives was to reduce the treble beaminess of the ESL 57 and another was to ensure a long service life - not easy with ultra-light diaphragms charged to over 5,000-Volts in a narrow gap between stators which carry the audio signal transformed to high voltages.  Peter Walker named the 63 "FRED" for full-range electrostatic dipole.  With minor modifications, it and its successors are still in production.

Note that these have no conventional crossovers - another source of distortion removed.  Overly high stator voltages are eliminated by attenuating signal voltages above 40-Volts.  To reduce the possibility of sparking which can burn holes in the diaphragm, an ionization detector could shut the speaker down by in effect making it look like a short circuit to the amplifier.

Alastair Robertson-Aikman, the founder of SME, tried various modification to the ESL-63 including stacking them.  Quad themselves introduced models with 50% more panel area to extend the low bass.

In the last few weeks, Quad has introduced two models with an -X suffix.  One of the things they seem to have done is to add insulation to the stators, and to remove the ionization detector in order to get a bit more volume.

My only real criticism of these speakers is that they don’t play loudly enough in big rooms, especially with the dynamics available from high resolution sources.  One way to boost their apparent output is to pair them with subwoofers.

Although they are big panels, the concentric stator design means they can also be used as near-field monitors which is an easy way to effectively crank-up the apparent volume.

A second criticism is the life of the panels, especially when they were produced in China.  The story is that Peter Walker specified glue with a 10 year minimum service life and the glue maker took him too literally