Is soundstage just a distortion?


Years back when I bought a Shure V15 Type 3 and then later when I bought a V15 Type 5 Shure would send you their test records (still have mine). I also found the easiest test to be the channel phasing test. In phase yielded a solid center image but one channel out of phase yielded a mess, but usually decidedly way off center image.

This got me thinking of the difference between analog and digital. At its best (in my home) I am able to get a wider soundstage out of analog as compared to digital. Which got me thinking- is a wide soundstage, one that extends beyond speakers, just an artifact of phase distortion (and phase distortion is something that phono cartridges can be prone to)? If this is the case, well, it can be a pleasing distortion.
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Hum... I agree that a well-executed amplifier and crossover is beneficial to the sound-stage, but I believe those benefits are more apparent in the actual staging of the instruments and players within the sound-stage.

The room itself, and the way in which the speakers are placed has more to do with the overall dimensions of that sound-stage. Speaker placement is the key to achieving a wide sound-stage. Then comes room treatments. I have heard some mid-fi gear that produces exceptionally wide and deep sound-stages, but at the same time poor definition within that sound-stage; and it is that definition ('realism") that we all strive for... Which entails much more than just dimensions...
Engineers are very well aware of what can be expected at the outcome. Hence their title. They are compensating for every limitation they are aware of in the play back system. Their goal is the same as ours, ie: those who care about accuracy. They do after all listen to playback before production. So the onus is on the gear to replicate what was intended, is it not? Variations in the performance of the gear is what this pursuit is all about. If this is not the case, then what is the purpose of the sound engineer?
Hi guys - my post was specifically about the recording side, not the playback side. To answer the last post of Csontos - most recording engineers of today do not at all have the same priorities as those of the past. With digital recording, they can make anything sound pretty much however they want to, and they do. There is absolutely no attempt anymore to be faithful to the actual sound, in the actual space it is being performed in. I am speaking here mainly of orchestral recording, done in a hall or large church, though of course in a recording studio they have even more control over the sound.

The other part of it is the miking itself, before it is mixed and edited. Back in the old days, with the great analog recordings, the recording companies would hang just a couple of mikes either out in the hall, or high above the orchestra, ala Mercury. This way they captured the sound of the space as the audience heard it, and were as faithful as possible to it. Conductors were also much more heavily involved in the process back then - the vast majority of them aren't really anymore, as far as how the recording itself goes (they are of course very concerned with the musical side of it). Now, with digital recording, you see at least one mike in every section of the orchestra, as close as they can get it to the musicians, and then they mix it and tweak it however the hell they want later. There are sometimes mikes out in the hall too, but very rarely, and even when there are, they aren't used much in the mix. Almost never does the final result sound like it actually did in the hall, in fact most of them don't even seem to care about recreating the sound of the actual space whatsoever. In other words, they simply don't care about soundstaging. This is a major reason why so many recordings and orchestras sound more and more the same in this day and age - not only are players all over the world sounding more and more the same, and regional differences are being lost, the recordings themselves contribute to this sameness by the way they are miked and edited and mixed.

Another dirty little secret is that to this day, so-called "sound engineers" are by and large not systematically trained, and learn on the job, almost always from someone else who had to do the same, if they have any help at all. There are very few books on the subject, and most recording engineers I have encountered in my career have never read any of them anyway. It is really quite shocking how little most of them actually know about what they are doing. Unfortunately, the fact that it is so easy for pretty much anyone to make and edit a recording now only exacerbates the situation. There are still some good ones out there, but in general, it is really true that most of them really don't know what they are doing.

Audiophiles love to talk about having equipment that is faithful to the recording, and as an audiophile myself I understand where they are coming from; however, as a professional musician, I know that almost all recording done nowadays is NOT faithful to what we actually sound like, particularly in the soundstaging aspects. They are just creating a mix that sounds good to them, and the miking is done so that they can manipulate what happens as much as possible. And again, this is even more true in the recording studios - just ask any orchestral musician that works for the film industry in Hollywood if the movie soundtrack accurately reflects what they actually sound like. They will probably not be able to help laughing in your face. Some audiophiles don't like to hear this kind of talk, but I'm sorry - it's true.
Wow, that sucks. I'm shattered. Does it matter? mmmmm..nope. Still a lot of great stuff out there I haven't heard yet.
"This is a major reason why so many recordings and orchestras sound more and more the same in this day and age - not only are players all over the world sounding more and more the same, and regional differences are being lost, the recordings themselves contribute to this sameness by the way they are miked and edited and mixed. "

Hadn't thought about that but rings true.

Does it matter?

I tend to think whenever everything starts to sound the same it does, but most people probably would not care.

The flip side is there are more recordings out there than ever each day, so the variety is still going up even if many newer ones tend to have more similarities due to production than in the past.

Also I suppose the fact that much litening to music occurs on portable devices using earphones has a major effect on the way recordings as a whole are produced. Gotta be a very small % of listeners out there who care about soundstage and have the tools to actually get it.

The good news is that most all recordings these days can have a big soundstage when played if desired, even if in many or most cases it is mainly a result of the production as opposed to anything resembling an original live performance.

Its a lifelike illusion of the players performing in YOUR room which is different than where recorded regardless. That's all one can expect and mostly what matters to me.

Having said that, I am a big fan of recordings that DO attempt to reproduce original live performance soundstage, Like old MErcury recordings from teh late50's and early 60's, and some current niche labels like Mapleshade and Dorian.