Lots of apt observations above. One thing I always do when setting up speakers is listen to Her Majesty stereo from Abbey Road, Paul's voice starts far right, moves to the center, and then moves left. I listen for focus, starting and finishing width, clarity, and consistent volume at various locations.
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Sometimes I wonder if I really want a 15 foot wide drum kit, or piano. Pretty sure their arms are not really that long. But I used to run a set of Energy bookshelf connoisseurs with a $300 Yamaha receiver, and it had no problem throwing images well beyond the edges of the speakers, so I don't think the amp is a factor. |
Spot on! Speakers which emulate a point source of sound have far more coherent reflections than those with multiple separated drivers. Once your ear/brain becomes accustomed to this effect, the difference is chalk and cheese. I am thinking Quad electrostatics from the ESL-63 and later, which despite being big panel speakers, emulate a point source a foot behind the panel. High-end KEF speakers like the Reference 1 do the same sort of thing. My Reference 1 speakers easily throw a sound stage triple the width of the actual speaker separation. Virtual line source speakers may do the same, but I have no personal experience with them. In my opinion the only other thing you need is a good recording made in a natural acoustic environment, not a multi-miked studio recording with artifacts. Almost any classical recording of orchestral music will do, especially if it is available on SACD. Now that I've offended most Audiogoners, I might as well add that the difference between two-channel and multi-channel is another case of chalk and cheese. Stop fussing over whether you can hear a miniscule change because of a power cord 'upgrade'. To really experience multi-channel, visit 2L - the Nordic Sound where most of their recent recordings on silver disk are packaged with SACD (including CD, two-channel DSD, multi-channel DSD) and Pure Audio Blu-ray which includes high resolution PCM up to 9 channels and Dolby Atmos (up to 32-channels). Don't even dream about streaming at these rates. |
I hear this effect with only some recordings, particularly live orchestral music, so, clearly, it starts with the recording. I recently changed my phono pre to the Sutherland Dos Locos (from the Koetsu RSP cartridge) and a number of LPs now exhibit the phenomenon of sound coming from the comers of the room, 8 feet behind and to the side of the speakers. Some hi-res digital recordings also do this trick, though to a lesser extent. I think that a necessary condition is high resolution components throughout the chain. It is not just channel separation as digital reproduction has a much greater separation than that of a typical analog level of 30dB. The point made above about the recording venue and engineering is critical. Forget it with multi-miked recordings (most DGs) and if you get it with studio recordings it has probably been faked with the pan-pots and phase manipulation.
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All else being equal, a speaker that is coherent between drivers such that the diameter of a given driver has a bandwidth through the crossover that lets it broadcast its intended frequencies with as much horizontal and vertical dispersion as possible. The larger the diameter of the driver the more it becomes directional at higher frequencies. Proper phase alignment between drivers also creates coherence such that there are minimal drop outs or cancellations in the overlapping frequencies between woofer and tweeter for example.
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