Soundstage, Depth, Imagery etc

I started my Naim experience with a Uniti, then Uniti 2, next a Nait XS 2, then added a NAP 200 using the Nait as a pre-amp, then got a 282 + HCDR, and finally (so far, egads) a NAP 300, and yes, like Simon I feel the soundstaging and imaging gets better every step higher up you go in the line, including power supplies.  Certainly soundstage is not at the top of Naim's priority list, but having gone tubular (Shindo) for a few years for that gear's exceptional soundstaging I feel now that Naim's PRAT, clarity, convenience and lack of distortion is far more important - at least to me.  

My system does depth, height and positioning very well. It's not something that I listen intently for, so it falls into the "happy coincidence" category. I think, more than anything, it depends on how the music was recorded and produced because a system can't put spatial perspective into a recording which doesn't have it to start with - unless it produces colouration. After that, I think the room, and how the speakers play the room will be the biggest determinants. I suppose that how well (or not) the amp controls/matches/compliments the speakers comes next.

Not sure if this helps - as far as I’m concerned there is no ‘soundstage’ to music - it’s just room acoustics in a concert hall.

For a rock band in full swing, there isn’t anything remotely resembling a so-called 3D soundstage. It’s either a good mix or bad mix on FOH speakers (FOH = Front Of the House). That’s what really matters.

When I’m on stage it’s either a case of hearing myself and band members or not. There is no sound stage - it’s just deafening noise from drums and most often boomimg noise from amps competing with wedge monitors.

If we use pre-amps only and in-ear monitors, as a bass player, all I hear is: click track, kick drum, snare, some overheads from drums, faint guitars and vocals and of course prominent bass. That mix is not pleasant for anyone, not even for me. But that’s the only way to perform. So again - soundstage is not important then.

What Naim does so well, is creating that ‘live’ feeling of a band. And that’s why I like it

I listened to that Slomo track... It sounds like there is some fancy processing going in the recording mix as the sounds do indeed separate out and fill the room.

TOBYJUG posted:

3D is an unfortunate way of describing how something is unfolding in time and space.  Brings to mind how movies superimpose flat images in front of and behind each other to trick the eye.

 

That of course is doing precisely what the eyes do in seeing in 3D, all the more so if you wear glasses with a similar field of view as the photo in its viewer, light coming from in front of you to form two single images, so the two camera lenses have a reasonable chance of getting very close to the same image, and with top quality images with a viewer no worse in field of view as wearing a pair of spectacles it is hard to think of any differences in what brain perceives.

The same might be true of binaural heahones with sound recorded for them - but normal in-room stereo depends much more on illusion. That leads me to contemplate listening room in visual equivalence: surfaces like walls, ceiling, floors, cupboard fronts etc reflect the sound more akin to as if they were all covered with mirrors, though mirrors on the less hard surfaces may be more green, blue or even violet tinted than others, corresponding to sound absorbency as they may not reflect all wavelengths equally. At the same time our ears pick up sounds behind, above, below and right to the sides of us and not just a cone in front, and we cannot focus ears in the same precise way as we can eyes, the ‘focus’ with ears being a mental ignoring of other sounds still present.

At home that challenge of the reflecting surfaces - generally very different from those in a live music venue - is a very real one in getting a realistic image, and can cause serious muddying of sound. But to some extent it can also be responsibe for building a wider soundstage than the speakers, and may be exploited to a greater or lesser degree by different speaker radiation patterns. And, of course, the brain is easily seduced readily accepting the illusion.

I am pleased to read other comments that realise that a soundstage is completely artificial in a studio setting. Anyone who has spent a moment at a mixing desk knows this. You can place instruments anywhere you want., and indeed move them around if you want to. Same applies to live non-acoustic performances. You are obviously hearing the mix (or a bootleg recording of the mix). Classical is a little different. Often a mix of the live placement and the engineers spotlighting and mixing. The results can all be enjoyed for what they are.    

What is really interesting though, is that simple mic arrangements and minimal production on a lot of Jazz, blues, and funk from 60's and 70's has more in terms of 3d soundstaging than most modern recordings.

Invariably, when it sounds like the band is really jamming in my living room and I get this imaginary and intimate virtual venue right in front of me, it is some of this older stuff. 

I suspect this comes down to a simple truth that we are listening to multiple instruments in stereo and simple recordings capture basics like relative distance between mics quite well and stereo playback preserves that nicely.

Stereo is all about putting the performance in your room anyway. So differences in perceived soundstage and even coloration from the room is, within reason, desired. Without those unique colourations, the in-the-room illusion is shattered. If perfect soundstaging is your thing then an acoustically dead room and a surround sound setup is the way to go since, unlike stereo, the purpose of surround is less about effects behind you and more about deleting the room entirely and putting you where the sound is. 

feeling_zen posted:

Invariably, when it sounds like the band is really jamming in my living room and I get this imaginary and intimate virtual venue right in front of me

I've never had this experience from any level of replay - the band jamming in my room. Involvement yes, but the same intimacy of an artist performing directly in front of me? No way; the eye contact, the foot tapping, watching the fingering. A virtual venue?  Absolutely.

Adam Zielinski posted:

What Naim does so well, is creating that ‘live’ feeling of a band.

The outcome of recording techniques is to enhance the replay experience in a listener's room, and I'd contend not so much to create the 'live' feeling of a band, at least where studio recordings are concerned. Rock studio recordings typically involve take X overdubbed onto take Y, then fed onto take Z, etc. Given those transpositions, seems tough to me to merit a 'live' feel regardless of the gear maker. Rather, it's about how engineered recordings play with the most involvement in your room. I think most music consumers are seeking a polished end product. Likewise, most artists want their best individual performance  recorded for posterity.

joerand posted:

The outcome of recording techniques is to enhance the replay experience in a listener's room, 

And with some genres like Hip Hop.. the apparently master mix can be enhanced to provide the best user experience in a listener’s car...

i agree about your comments on replay, consumer audio replay, certainly with higher specification  equipment such as with Naim is about capturing the feel and desired audio experience in your listening environment of the mix master... and  that is all it can do ... but do it effectively... it can’t make something sound ‘live’ if it was not recorded and mastered to sound ‘live’... that would require your audio replay to be some sort of sentient being and modify  the recording to suit.

cdboy posted:

I am pleased to read other comments that realise that a soundstage is completely artificial in a studio setting. Anyone who has spent a moment at a mixing desk knows this. You can place instruments anywhere you want., and indeed move them around if you want to. Same applies to live non-acoustic performances. You are obviously hearing the mix (or a bootleg recording of the mix). Classical is a little different. Often a mix of the live placement and the engineers spotlighting and mixing. The results can all be enjoyed for what they are.    

Yes, artificial a studio recording way be, but the general idea is to create a soundstage that is similar to live presentation, though sometimes with effects that definitely are not, though done for ‘enhancement’.

And of course the whole point of stereo is to be able to create an illusory soundstage, but that can vary from realistic/natural placement (subject to limitations of speaker speaker spacing and room influence) to ...well almost anything the artist/engineer wants, including effects like making it sound as if a person is sitting next to you, as in Roger Waters’ Amused to Death - which is eerie, but fits the music.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

And with some genres like Hip Hop.. the apparently master mix can be enhanced to provide the best user experience in a listener’s car...

Some would argue that a car (possibly not at highway speeds) actually provides a better venue than the typical home listening room. Luxury car speakers are optimized for a small, constant, near field environment. More immediate sound. Plus they offer tone and fader controls to customize to the listener's preference. Then again, car speakers must fit into constrained positions.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Yes, artificial a studio recording way be, but the general idea is to create a soundstage that is similar to live presentation, though sometimes with effects that definitely are not, though done for ‘enhancement’.

Is it? now I admit it’s almost 30 years since I was involved with professional studio engineering and now I only do it for fun with friends... but using certain production tools many soundstage processes are used to create a feel and space around sounds to make the music sound more legible, pronounced and less cluttered and/or give a specific feel. Stereo expanders,  enhancers and even good old reverb are usually used to enhance or create a stereo field for a mix or recording track, sometimes on a frequency or other modulated basis... it’s all about replay listening experience and impression rather than trying to emulate any ‘live’ effect I would say... which in many amplified concert setups will be sonically inferior anyway... it’s probably fair  to say most rock concerts are about the show performance musicianship  with feel, venue atmosphere and band/audience interaction rather than audio quality per se and appreciating the stereo field....

Innocent Bystander posted:

the whole point of stereo is to be able to create an illusory soundstage

I don't see that stereo as a recording mechanism is illusory. We have two ears and evolved binaural hearing to pinpoint the location of sounds; the whole point of imagery in replay. I'd say mono replay detracts from rather than enhances the natural binaural experience.

joerand posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

the whole point of stereo is to be able to create an illusory soundstage

I don't see that stereo as a recording mechanism is illusory. We have two ears and evolved binaural hearing to pinpoint the location of sounds; the whole point of imagery in replay. I'd say mono replay detracts from rather than enhances the natural binaural experience.

Surely it's illusory in the sense that the actual sound is only coming from two places (which would ideally be point sources, but in practice from 2,4,6 or sometimes more), but we interpret this as sound coming from many places.  But that is an illusion - they are not coming from those places.  Mono replay, IME, loses the soundstage (or rather, the artificial soundstage) but can reproduce the actual sounds more accurately.  In pratice, if you were at a rock gig and not relatively near to the stage, you would be hearing in mono anyway - the separation of the speakers would be too little to be able to hear in stereo to anything like the degree you would hear it in you living room.

joerand posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

the whole point of stereo is to be able to create an illusory soundstage

I don't see that stereo as a recording mechanism is illusory. We have two ears and evolved binaural hearing to pinpoint the location of sounds; the whole point of imagery in replay. I'd say mono replay detracts from rather than enhances the natural binaural experience.

Illusory (with loudspeakers at least) in that the sound emanates from two sources some distance in front of us, and not from points in between, those in between points being produced by a signal from both speakers that our ears perceive as a distance between them based on proprtional levels, and from that information our brains assemble as if the sound is actually coming from that point between.

However, our ears are much cleverer than simply having two of them differentiate between the position of sounds by the relative time for it to reach each ear: even with one ear not hearing you can tell if a sound is in front of, to the side or behind you, at least in a room environment, and I suspect it is whatever information our ears are using to determine that that is the key to Q-sound used so effectivele by Roger Waters (also the earlier so-called holophonics).

It is interesting with my journey .... I have always enjoyed that 3 dimensional realm my systems have given ...... however, as I have progressed up to a 500 system ........ yes the 3D is great ....... but what seems to be more important and gives me more enjoyment is the combination of detail, texture and pace ....... that combines to give a very organic presence to music. 

Beachcomber posted:

Mono replay, IME, loses the soundstage (or rather, the artificial soundstage) but can reproduce the actual sounds more accurately.  In pratice, if you were at a rock gig and not relatively near to the stage, you would be hearing in mono anyway - the separation of the speakers would be too little to be able to hear in stereo to anything like the degree you would hear it in you living room.

I get what you're saying, but suspect that most folks with a hi-fi system listen to mono recordings using both their left and right speakers (undoubtedly HPs users are). So really not a true mono experience as sounds emanate from two different point sources in the room. Net result, loss of soundstage versus stereo. I see no reason a stereo recording should be less accurate, perhaps it's simply less complex information for the brain to assimilate.

joerand posted:

 

most folks with a hi-fi system listen to mono recordings using both their left and right speakers (undoubtedly HPs users are). So really not a true mono experience as sounds emanate from two different point sources in the room.

Yes, you are right, of course.  Listening with just one speaker (properly monaural) might in some ways be better than using both speakers - phase differences would be eliminated, for instance, AIUI

SongStream posted:

I know, but it made me laugh when I read it back and spotted the obvious error, so I thought I'd endure the embarrassment for the benefit of the forum. 

Or, at least, for the benefit of the part of English speaking forum that knows that symbol is pronounced like cymbal and that cymbals are these:

The rest of us must know it or miss the fun....

Richieroo posted:

It is interesting with my journey .... I have always enjoyed that 3 dimensional realm my systems have given ...... however, as I have progressed up to a 500 system ........ yes the 3D is great ....... but what seems to be more important and gives me more enjoyment is the combination of detail, texture and pace ....... that combines to give a very organic presence to music. 

Following Max example, is this what you mean by 'organic presence to music':

'Laudate eum in tympano et choro laudate eum in cordis et organo
Laudate eum in cymbalis bene sonantibus laudate eum in cymbalis iubilationis'