Folks,
Below is a link to a sketch of the arrangement.
Again, looking at the sketch one would expect the sound to emerge from the rear of the speaker. If you position yourself carefully in both a lateral and longitudinal direction, the sound vanishes from the rear of the speaker and the stage forms against the wall at the opposite end of the room. It's a weird effect that takes a second or two to register. Eldartford, in many ways it sounds like the monaural affect that you mentioned, but mostly because the sound 'hangs in a space' against the back wall and does not appear to have a source.
The soundstage has all of the aspects of a 'normal' stereo soundstage, without the speakers! It has incredible depth, width and height - in a natural unbloated sense. It has accurate image placement, though not as tightly rendered as with the conventional setup. What makes it so out of the ordinary is the apparant absence of normal room anomalies such as bass boominess or slap echo. It sounds transparent and natural - musical, to put it another way.
Of course, the whole arrangement is not 'optimized' for this presentation. The only thing being moved from the conventional setup is the chair. I suspect that if one were able to optimize fully, without constraints on speaker/chair positions, then the sound could be amazing.
Here goes http://www.newaudiosociety.com/new-seat.jpg
Below is a link to a sketch of the arrangement.
Again, looking at the sketch one would expect the sound to emerge from the rear of the speaker. If you position yourself carefully in both a lateral and longitudinal direction, the sound vanishes from the rear of the speaker and the stage forms against the wall at the opposite end of the room. It's a weird effect that takes a second or two to register. Eldartford, in many ways it sounds like the monaural affect that you mentioned, but mostly because the sound 'hangs in a space' against the back wall and does not appear to have a source.
The soundstage has all of the aspects of a 'normal' stereo soundstage, without the speakers! It has incredible depth, width and height - in a natural unbloated sense. It has accurate image placement, though not as tightly rendered as with the conventional setup. What makes it so out of the ordinary is the apparant absence of normal room anomalies such as bass boominess or slap echo. It sounds transparent and natural - musical, to put it another way.
Of course, the whole arrangement is not 'optimized' for this presentation. The only thing being moved from the conventional setup is the chair. I suspect that if one were able to optimize fully, without constraints on speaker/chair positions, then the sound could be amazing.
Here goes http://www.newaudiosociety.com/new-seat.jpg