Upscaling Speakers, Downscaling Amp...What to Do?

Rok2id,

You are absolutely correct - speakers, their placement, and the room in which they are housed have the largest effect on soundstage. However, amps and preamps certainly play a significant part in soundstage reproduction. Tube gear is famous for it. Solid state has traditionally been the laggard here, but has caught up considerably. Take a listen to most 1980s solid state amps and you are likely to hear flat, two dimensional audio.

I state this as my opinion. Unlike some, who come off sounding quite ignorant and inexperienced, I do not promote my opinions as fact.

Mike

You made a very sensble statement. This is how I see it. If you have the best soundstage conceivable in a home setup, and then you move that system to a closet or the bathroom, does the soundstage change? Of course. Why? The output of the CD player / TT has not changed. The output of the amp has not changed. The vibrations being emitted from the speaker's cones has not changed. But the inter-action with the much different and confined room causes the soundstage to collaspe. That means the sound and spatial perception that reaches your ears has changed. i.e the changes you hear are a result of the sound waves inter-acting within a much smaller room. There are many other ways to cause a soundstage to collapse, i.e. distance between speakers too great etc... The point is, the electronics play no role. All of this assumes it's not a mono recording from the 30's and the amp is a good match for driving the speakers..

The blind leading the blind, what a sight.

If you have the best soundstage conceivable in a home setup, and then you move that system to a closet or the bathroom, does the soundstage change? Of course.

If you have the best soundstage conceivable in a home setup, and then you drop your amp from the top of a tall building, does the soundstage change? Of course.

More seriously, demonstrating the existence of one effect does not necessarily demonstrate the non-existence of another.

Mornin!

John

> The point is, the electronics play no role.

I did not say this, so I'm assuming it represents your own point of view? I simply said that the electronics are of relatively lesser importance.

If you ever have the opportunity to substitute one significantly different amp for another, with no other changes and with levels as closely matched as possible, I believe that you would hear quite a change in soundstage and imaging between, say, a Crown DC-300 and an Audio Research Ref 300.