Looking for the next level in imaging...

@mahgister  Please answer this simple question.  A recording of a trio.  Guitar, Bass and Sax.  The recording engineer has mixed the final tape to have all three mics/instruments playing an equal signal from left and right channel.  This puts the sound of the recording with all three instruments in the center of the stage.  Are you claiming there is any stereo equipment or room treatment, or combination of each that will produce a playback in my listening room where the three instruments are spread out across the room, and for good measure, the sax is in the center and five feet in front of the guitar and bass? That is what I called into question with the statement, if it's not on the recording, it's not in your listening room.  Cheers.

On my stereo system I can hear singer‘s voices about 6 feet above the floor and their guitars about 3 feet or so above the floor.  Some Eric Clapton albums, for example are like that.  His unplugged album you can tell he is sitting down.  His voice is a little to the right and about 4 feet above the floor and his guitar about 3 feet.  I have heard several other albums/singers like that- even if they are to the left or right.  I don‘t know how my system does it.  And sometimes the voice is 3 or 4 feet above the floor with the instruments at the same level.  Chorale pieces are very exciting.  Voices in some recordings extend up to the ceiling and beyond the walls.

Different recordings have different imaging.

@toddalin 

I think I understand your point now. I doesn’t matter if the lead guitar is on the left or right it is the fact you can hear different instruments in their own space? This is how most all the music I listen to sounds like. It’s nice that everything isn’t jumbled together in a big wall of sound. I can enjoy how each instrument sounds individually. Happy listening. 
 

Ron 

My system also does all that.  Steely Dan is a favorite for imaging and a wide soundstage.  The instruments and sound effects are floor to ceiling and wall to wall.  With many recordings of bigger bands, it's very clear how one horn is in the back row compared to another.  It's there in the recording and most any decent stereo will give you a good sense of stage image.  My contention remains, it is in the recording, NOT in the system or room treatment.  Those can only improve what is on the recording, but not create what isn't there.  

Can’t create what is not there, but what if it’s there and your system can’t re-create it?  You wouldn't know that it's there when it is.

First i dont like albums too much mixed in studio...😊 I listen classical and jazz...

Second you got it wrong right here : the room acoustics and your acoustic room/ears parameters will translate the sound imaging and soundstage recorded by the recording engineer set of trade-off choices for you in a wrong or in a good way... The recording so good it is will be acoustically deformed or well rendered, but  it is all related to your speakers/room content /listener position  and the right balance between absorption/reflection/diffusion...( the bass problem must also be solved ) ...

Most people dont even know that because their system/room is so mediocre that the soundfield is almost captive of the speakers plane ...😊

But the acoustic information must be in the recording to begin with , here you are right. But you lost it when you forgot that the acoustic coupling parameters of the speaker /room must be tuned to gave to us ALL acoustic information in the recording to begin with...

A good dac cannot replace speakers"room acoustics. Even the powerful Choueiri dac will not do it but will help you to do the speakers/room right ...

@mahgister Please answer this simple question. A recording of a trio. Guitar, Bass and Sax. The recording engineer has mixed the final tape to have all three mics/instruments playing an equal signal from left and right channel. This puts the sound of the recording with all three instruments in the center of the stage. Are you claiming there is any stereo equipment or room treatment, or combination of each that will produce a playback in my listening room where the three instruments are spread out across the room, and for good measure, the sax is in the center and five feet in front of the guitar and bass? That is what I called into question with the statement, if it’s not on the recording, it’s not in your listening room. Cheers.

It is common place fact that you cannot create inexistent acoustic information which is not already recorded but a bad room will impede and/or deform this acoustic information ...

My contention remains, it is in the recording, NOT in the system or room treatment. Those can only improve what is on the recording, but not create what isn’t there.

the problem is that the speakers/room content/ears is the main factor in the translation of the recorded acoustic information through your your room/system acoustic parameters ...The dac price matter but is secondary compared to the acoustics parameters... That is my point ...Most people think that the dac will do miracle....What they call the recording is the bits in the dacs...What i call the recording is the acoustic trade off choices chosen by recording engineer ( or the mixer)

A common place evident fact do not replace acoustics.. 😊

And in any stereo system even in top acoustic room there is some spatial acoustic information that cannot be translated acoustically right. It is why the Choueiri filters are more than a tweak or a gimmick. It is acoustics science fact...

But it is evident that the information must be in the recording AS ACOUSTICS INFORMATION recorded by the engineer... Nobody can dispute that ...

Reading your post i know that you know what i spoke about. Then i apologize because  i commented one line of your post out of context ...

@mahgister  There's a lot of love in this room.  🤣

😊

I agree that a lot of studio recordings are two dimensional. The images sound great but they all line up in one plane. There are exceptions like that Blue Turk, that I mentioned- really good recording from the early 1970s. Cowboy Junkies‘ Trinity Session was recorded with a stereo mic in a Church. It has a great spacious soundstage that sounds fantastic on modest and grand stereo systems.

I stream a lot of music on Qobuz now.  The music produced by the big name studios has much better dynamics and 3D soundstage vs. a lot of these lessor known studios.  Voices will move to the left or right and then back to center on some songs by less well known bands.  But I still love all the music, the large selection on Qobuz.  A number of gems to be found.

I appreciate live recordings more with my current speakers. The large spacious soundstage of live recordings come across as interesting and enjoyable.

@polkalover  The most difficult aspect of audio system performance is imaging. There have been many articles written on the subject. Relatively few audiophiles have heard a system image at the state of the art. Most systems can image well to a point, about 90%. It is that last 10% that is difficult to achieve. @mikelavigne made some great suggestions, limiting the number of crossover points and room symmetry are very important. The speakers have to see identical, but mirror image environments. I would also like to add a few points and suggestions. Early and even some late reflections can ruin imaging. There are three ways to optimize limiting reflections, sitting closer to the speakers has it's limits, choosing speakers with controlled dispersion and finally acoustic treatments of the room. Horns and ESLs are examples of speakers with controlled dispersion. ESLs can be formatted as full frequency line sources which IMHO is the speaker type with the best radiation pattern of all. They send virtually no sound to the side walls, ceiling or floor. An example would be any of the 8 or 9 foot Sound Labs speakers. Omnidirectional speakers will never give you the ultimate image in any room and you have to use a lot of acoustic materials to get even close. 

Next is an issue you will not see covered often and that is identical sonic performance between the two channels. No two speakers are exactly alike and you can not place them in exactly the same location. They will have different amplitude response patterns or rather, they will not have identical frequency response curves. When one speaker is louder than the other at any given frequency the image is smeared towards the louder speaker. Thus the image can be smeared back and forth at various frequencies killing the 3rd dimension, that last 10%. The third dimension is not instruments at different distances away from you, any system can do that and much of it is artificially created by the mixing engineer with echo. The 3rd dimension is the sense that and instrument or voice is a 3 dimensional object in space. If that space is full of reflections, echo and amplitude smear you will not be able to delineate the 3rd dimension at all. This is the state of most systems including some incredibly expensive ones. The only way to achieve sonic symmetry is by measuring each channel independently then adjusting amplitude over the  frequency range. I limit adjustments to between 100 Hz and 12 kHz. You do not have to have a flat response, you have to have identical frequency response curves. Flat actually does not sound so hot. Studies have shown that the best response curve in most residential situations is boosted bass below 100 Hz with about 2 dB/oct attenuation above 1000 Hz. 

Imaging is always going to be best at the listening position and on a line perpendicular to the speaker axis through the listening position. There is no such thing as a "wide sweet spot". However, it would be nice to be able to hear the far speaker clearly and again line source speakers are best at this because volume does not fall off near as drastically as point source speakers when you move away from the loudspeaker.  

As Mike Lavigne suggests accurate bass is a vitally important aspect of system performance and easily the most difficult portion of the spectrum to optimize. The reason is interference patterns in residentially sized rooms and resonance of this that and the other. Bass is incredibly physical. If I play a 30 Hz test tone at 85 dBs you can hear a symphony of buzzing and rattling in the house. This is usually completely masked by the music. I attack only the rattles I can hear. Room control can only do so much and subwoofers often do more damage than good, but sometimes you have to dance with the devil especially if you were to chose another ESL, and that is a whole other subject. The problem with your MLs is they cross to a dynamic driver at 375 Hz, right in the most important part of the midrange. Remember 256 Hz is middle C! The electrostatic portion of the Ethos can not handle lower frequencies because it is curved. An enclosed dynamic speaker is dramatically different than an ESL. The difference below 100 Hz can be gracefully dealt with, but above 100 Hz not so much. IMHE no ESL can gracefully handle bass below 100 Hz and this is where you have to dance with the devil. 

@toddalin  This is a great point. You can not know what SOTA imaging is until you have heard it. You have to know what you are missing and you have to delineate the problem in order to attack it. I have many studio recordings that you can tell the vocalists and instruments are in totally different environments and probably recorded at different times and frequently in different studios. I focus on live recordings or recordings in which the entire band is playing together in the same room. Great imaging helps to delineate individual instruments. A good live recording with a horn section is a great example. A top notch system will allow you to identify each instrument in space. Most systems show you the horn section, but you can not separate the instruments easily, the same applies to vocal sections. The spatial cues are usually there, but acoustic errors can easily overcome them because they are at a much lower volume. IMHO there is no such thing as too much acoustic treatment. An anechoic chamber is better than a poorly treated room.  

ATCs are known for their off axis sound. Sealed box.

@mahgister Please answer this simple question. A recording of a trio. Guitar, Bass and Sax. The recording engineer has mixed the final tape to have all three mics/instruments playing an equal signal from left and right channel. This puts the sound of the recording with all three instruments in the center of the stage. Are you claiming there is any stereo equipment or room treatment, or combination of each that will produce a playback in my listening room where the three instruments are spread out across the room, and for good measure, the sax is in the center and five feet in front of the guitar and bass? That is what I called into question with the statement, if it’s not on the recording, it’s not in your listening room. Cheers

The notion that everything remains at the mercy of the mastering tech and his recording’s limitations/inadequacies is a bit time warped and assumes that everything remains the same as it was 50 years ago

Some very smart guys at Dolby, DTS, Yamaha, Sony, etc got together and advanced technologies in object based/spatial audio to address just this. You would need a minimum of 6 speakers ( 2 fronts, 2 surrounds, 2 heights) to do justice to their spatial upmixing codecs. The speaker count would go up from there depending on how nitpicky one gets. If you have a native spatial mix, that’s great. But, they will try to salvage even crappy stereo mixes.

In other words, these codecs can decompose the recording and "spread it out" in a 3-D dome (aligned with your multi speaker perimeter) and create all kinds of depth wise layering, spatial nuance/cues and detail, that’s simply impossible in stereo.

If you are an ardent believer in 2 speakers only, BACCH can do a relatively dumbed down version of the above mentioned and offer something relatively convincing.

Some new FPGA dacs (hrtfs, whatever proprietary code’s in there) used in purist stereo will try to create an even more dumbed down version of the above mentioned

You could try to help things out with speaker design (concentrics are an example), positioning, etc. For example, if you have speakers flat against a wall and sit flat up against a wall (no 6 to 8 ft of space behind you), everything goes to sht from there, etc.

+1 to mijostyn post ...

The third dimension is not instruments at different distances away from you, any system can do that and much of it is artificially created by the mixing engineer with echo. The 3rd dimension is the sense that and instrument or voice is a 3 dimensional object in space. If that space is full of reflections, echo and amplitude smear you will not be able to delineate the 3rd dimension at all. This is the state of most systems including some incredibly expensive ones.

I understand his point here but we must had the right balance between all surface (reflecting-diffusive and absorbing) then we can have too much room treatment if one of the three factor is unbalanced with the others for a specific room geometry size and content ..

A good live recording with a horn section is a great example. A top notch system will allow you to identify each instrument in space. Most systems show you the horn section, but you can not separate the instruments easily, the same applies to vocal sections. The spatial cues are usually there, but acoustic errors can easily overcome them because they are at a much lower volume. IMHO there is no such thing as too much acoustic treatment. An anechoic chamber is better than a poorly treated room.

I used my own mechanical equalizer with 100 distributed resonators located at specific places and this is more than passive acoustic treatment. We can create not only good imaging and holography ( the third dimension which is the sonic volume of each instrument ) but the end goal more than imaging done right is the listener envelopment (LV) Source width auditory (ASW) ratio.

But no, an anechoic room is a dead space , unnatural, it is better a bad room we will improve ... ☺😊

@mijostyn 

+100 on over treating being better than under treating. Especially in smaller rooms where control is even more important. 

Some of the best imaging I've heard from a box speaker was a pair of floor-standing Nesteroviches.  I couldn't believe that such a klunky, traditional-looking speaker could disappear so completely.  They were very well set up in a room, oh, 25' deep x 15' wide, with lowish ceilings, not much room treatment to speak of.  Horowitz and Ben Webster fully occupied the space behind the speakers.  Very impressive.  Also they are beautifully balanced, tonally speaking.  Nesterovich himself is long gone, unfortunately, but you can occasionally find them used.

I demoed the BAACH system.  The tech guy dials in to your Mac and sets it up.  They're very nice and offer a ton of support, but I heard almost NOTHING--seriously, almost no effect at all.  We talked about my ProAcs and the room, both of which are not terribly bad, IMO.  Finally he asked about my hearing, if one ear is different from the other.  Most certainly.  My left ear is very frequency-limited, and the tech said that will negate the desired effect!  I kept the demo for a few days to play for an audiophile friend who has superb hearing, and he could hear the effect very well.  But neither he nor I liked the "processed" sound.  Bear in mind that this was a rough test in a modest system.  It costs nothing (except a temporary charge on your credit card) to try it.  Clealry not for me, though.

Speaking of the recording engineer's magic, this live album has long been one of my absolute favorites, both for the music and for the quality of the recording. Kavi Alexander of Water Lilly Acoustics is a recording master. A Meeting By The River won the 1994 Grammy Award for Best World Music Album and its success spurred engineer and Water Lily Acoustics head Kavichandran Alexander to record more collaborations. 

A Meeting By The River is universally praised for the authenticity and realism of its recording and its 2008 vinyl release is often cited as audiophile-quality reference material. The session was captured using two customised valve mics in a Blumlein-array arrangement (using Tim de Paravicini tube gear, IIRC) into a converted Studer two-track analog tape recorder and the louder you play it, the more every rattle and scrape of slide on fingerboard and every microtonal flurry draws you into its rarefied, spontaneous atmosphere.
A Meeting By the River review

zuesman

mihorn, Unfortunately this is not the cleanest most natural sounding system in the world, sorry to burst your bubble but there’s a much better systems out there.

It is possible that my system is not the cleanest and the most natural sound system in the world. There can be many better sounding systems which I haven't heard yet.

Please kindly let me know what and where is that much better sound system. Alex/WTA

+100 on over treating being better than under treating. Especially in smaller rooms where control is even more important.

@ronboco

i spent years optimizing the imaging in my large dedicated room, and holographic imaging is very important to me. i already wrote a long post in this thread about my opinion about it.

but when it c omes to musical connection, my highest priority is ’why’ and 'what' the musician is doing, not ’where’ he is doing it. it’s the musical intent and musical energy, micro and macro dynamics, textures, rich tonality, and flow which is the priority. every time i made a change in my system or my acoustical treatment i would take a week to 10 days to make sure that i was not inhibiting the flow and energy and musical touch to attain better imaging.

i want it all. imaging is desired, but it’s not first in line.

so over doing room treatments is NOT an option for me. it’s all about balance.

the physicality and how the music effects me is what i desire. imaging just takes it further. live music many times is a mess as far as imaging, yet we automatically connect. it’s REAL.

small rooms can be a challenge; i just got back from Axpona and there are many small rooms. but still musical connection comes from balance, and sometimes imaging suffers to get that connection. turning down the flow to get imaging is not how i would like it. YMMV.

You don’t want an omnidirectional speaker. Your dipoles are as good as you’re going to get for both imaging and spaciousness (artificial) without cabinet coloration.

Otherwise, look for speakers with incredibly well damped cabinets, controlled dispersion and steep crossover slopes (perhaps active crossovers for best results).

Driver quality also plays a large role. The higher the distortion of the drivers, the more they smear the image IME. Same for crossover slopes—low order/shallow slopes cause the imaging to fall apart when the music gets complex or played loud.

Hi @mikelavigne

re: "but when it comes to musical connection, my highest priority is ’why’ and ’what’ the musician is doing, not ’where’ he is doing it. it’s the musical intent and musical energy, micro and macro dynamics, textures, rich tonality, and flow which is the priority."

You have surely gone to greater lengths for a longer time than probably anyone on A’gon to make your room and system as good as it can be. In your quest to achieve a balance of all the best of "why" and "what", is it possible to break down or quantify the importance of the different components and room design and tuning?

For example—and I am just throwing out numbers as examples—would it be 30% room design, acoustics and tuning (to get a holographic image); 40% speakers; and 30% front end? Is it possible to break it down? And to refine it even more, like ratios of importance for the front end (ie, amp, preamp, DAC, source)? If percentages are unrealistic, maybe a ranked priority order would work?

I have heard tell of very expensive systems that sounded mediocre relative to price, because of bad rooms, poor setup, and another big problem (I’m told)—poor synergy between components.

I’m sorry if the question isn’t well-stated or imprecise, but maybe you get my drift. THX

Increasing detail and resolution will improve imaging.  Increased detail provides better imaging cues, more air around images.  An effective way to improve detail and resolution is to isolate the speakers and components.  The best way to isolate is by using springs.  

For decades my speakers sat on spikes.  I knew spikes improved the sound over the speakers resting directly on the floor.  Then a few years back I got the idea to build some spring platforms for my speakers.  The improvement in sound and detail blew me away.  Eventually I bought the Isoacoustic footers.  They sounded a bit better than my self made spring platforms and were also much easier to use.  Wrestling 130 lb speakers onto my self made spring platforms was a bit tricky.  I use Isoacoustic footers on my current 238 lb speakers and they are clearly superior to the factory supplied spikes.  The subwoofers in my HT setup now use my self made spring platforms and they sound great.  Having the subs isolated from the floor eliminates all muddiness in the bass.

With that success I tried isolating my components with springs.  I found that it is better to isolate the shelves with the springs vs. putting the components directly on the springs.  Isolate the shelves and then place the components on those shelves and use your damping of choice between the component and shelf.  The ideal isolation is to have the shelf/component combo resonate at around 3 Hz.  That can be difficult to achieve sitting on compression springs; but I find that below 7 Hz works very well.  I have thought about building shelves that hang on extension springs.  It would be much easier to achieve 3 Hz but my system sounds so good right now I have no motivation to tinker any further.  Maybe later, perhaps.  Although I have already seen a couple of examples of racks using shelves suspended on springs.

I gained so much detail that I found it distracting at first.  It took away from the music.  I almost wanted to go back but it is like letting the genie out of the bottle.   Fortunately, in time I grew accustomed to the added detail and resolution and was back to enjoying the music even more with the improved imaging.  It's quite a thrill listening to a Chorale piece and hearing each individual voice across the sound stage vs. a cloud of voices.

All I can say is WOW!  Lots of good ideas and suggestions to work through.  It's why I love these forums!  So much to think about before you make a decision!.  I will say this -  the most intriguing idea (and I forget which responder/poster said it) that you can't reproduce what isn't there. Helluva observation! However, I thought  that's why Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 were brought to market.  Which then made me reconsider what I'm after. Thanks for the good debate!

@mikelavigne 

Hello Mike. Thank you for your input. I think you are definitely correct about having a good balance. My point was if your room was going to be either over damped or under damped it seems like over damped is better. I  have heard rooms with little to no treatment and my room sounds better to me. My room was designed by an acoustician and all the walls and ceiling are the ‘treatments’ if you  will. There is no drywall inside the room. My room is on the small side and I think he did a great job with the design. If I had a bigger room I would no doubt approach it differently. 
 

Regards 

Ron 

My two cents,

Unless you can have your speakers at least 2.5-3 feet away from the front wall and at least 3’ from the side walls and your listening position is 5-8’ from the back wall, you are probably not going to get the best your speakers. 
My KEF Reference 5’s are three feet away from the front and side walls. They are 8 feet apart and my ears are just a touch less than 8 feet from the front of the speakers. Oh and my listening position is about 6 feet from the back wall.

All the Best.

@patrickdowns  Not to toot my own horn, but I have been doing this since 1958. 

@mikelavigne I look at it from a different perspective. I want to hear exactly what is in the recording. I do not want to hear any editorialization by the room. As far as reproduction is concerned, everything is important. Detail, dynamics, bass, and imaging. Bass and imaging are definitely the hardest to get right. Some systems are even hyper detailed, audiophiles tend to love this. If there is a question of balance it is with volume. Every recording  has a correct volume, a volume at which it sounds best. This is because our ear's frequency response changes with volume. Funkadelic recordings sound like crap if you listen to them at casual volumes, but turn them up on a system with great bass and magic occurs. Listen to a string quartet at that volume and the violins will cut your throat. Joni Mitchell albums generally sound best at intermediate volumes. Much of this has to do with the volume the music was mixed at. Early Zappa records sounded compressed and muffled with poor bass. They were mixed at crazy high volumes on less than stellar equipment. You really had to crank them to get the most out of them. The re-releases were mixed on modern equipment at moderate levels and the difference is a major improvement. 

I might also add that like my room, your was expressly designed for music reproduction making it much easier to achieve decent control. I only had to add absorption directly behind the speakers. 

@mijostyn , points well taken. I was born in 1957, by the way! Got my first decent system (for me, as a teen) in HS (Bose 301s!), but had fallen in love with music reproduction long before then, lying on the living room floor listening to Dionne Warwick, The Association, and the Everly Brothers on my parents’ big console hi-fi.

I still have much to learn and do to optimize my system, but know that I probably don’t have the perseverance, talent, rigor, patience, and critical ear to do what @mikelavigne has done, and others too who have really refined systems. Even if I had the budget, I would need help. It is also interesting how subjective AND objective the pursuit can be, and how each person may have different priorities. Horses for courses. I could probably be really happy with a great, simple system consisting of a great pair of two-way monitors, a great integrated amp, and an excellent DAC and streamer (streaming or ripped CDs are my thing). I could also be very happy with a much larger, more complex and expensive system. I am a guy who can have fun driving a Miata or a Porsche 911 (which I may never own—woe is me). Cheers.

@mijostyn I thought I knew what soundstage was until I read your essay :) Very educational and I am happy to always be learning.

@mijostyn

I want to hear exactly what is in the recording. I do not want to hear any editorialization by the room.

How is this possible without attending the recording session? Don’t we want a presentation that we consider natural and representative of the live performance. In other words, all of this depends upon our own preferences. Many of us must compromise due to our room, budget and other constraints, but ultimately we want our system to, as much as possible, have seeming presence of the musicians and instruments in a pleasing space.

Every recording has a correct volume

Ah, that is why I listen to Taylor Swift with the sound muted.

I have to agree with @mijostyn again. It seems like a bad thing to have reflections changing the recording from the way it was intended to be heard. Although I’ve read the reflections add spaciousness that is pleasing to most people. It truly is totally subjective which one you like better 

@mijostyn

I want to hear exactly what is in the recording. I do not want to hear any editorialization by the room.

How is this possible without attending the recording session? Don’t we want a presentation that we consider natural and representative of the live performance. In other words, all of this depends upon our own preferences. Many of us must compromise due to our room, budget and other constraints, but ultimately we want our system to, as much as possible, have seeming presence of the musicians and instruments in a pleasing space.

Some musicians don't care...Some musicians care, but have to compromise a lot...All kinds of recordings get produced in very unfavorable circumstances. Even an artist who cares will quit being nitpicky when he needs to get paid ( considering the fact that a vast majority of the masses who buy the albums don't care).

I have demo'd my rigs to multiple musicians from different genres, a multichannel object based/spatial rig, a 2 channel rig with BACCH and purist stereo rig (I can literally do that in the same room).

I've asked them, "You are sitting here listening to 3 different presentations of your album...How would you prefer your album sounded? Demo 1, Demo 2 or Demo 3?

Not a single one of them has picked purist stereo, thus far!

I have listened to omni speakers and they do produce sound that fills the room but lack pinpoint imaging. 

The answer does not simply depend on speakers alone. A nice 300B amplifier with speakers to match should do the trick. 

Remember in the movie, Back to School, Rodney Dangerfield pays Kurt Vonnegut Jr. to write an essay for him about one of his own books.  Rodney‘s character gets an F on the paper with the comment, “I know you didn‘t write this paper but whoever did knows nothing about Kurt Vonnegut Jr.“. There is some truth to that.  We interpret things in ways an artist or designer never imagined.

Perhaps musicians listen about as well as we would performing.

I prefer stereo sound without tone controls or spatial processing.  It‘s taken me years to accept listening to music reconstituted back from binary code.

"Every recording  has a correct volume, a volume at which it sounds best. This is because our ear's frequency response changes with volume."

The "volume control" is to be used like the "focus" knob on a microscope or telescope.

is it possible to break down or quantify the importance of the different components and room design and tuning?

For example—and I am just throwing out numbers as examples—would it be 30% room design, acoustics and tuning (to get a holographic image); 40% speakers; and 30% front end? Is it possible to break it down? And to refine it even more, like ratios of importance for the front end (ie, amp, preamp, DAC, source)? If percentages are unrealistic, maybe a ranked priority order would work?

@patrickdowns

back in 2017 i responded to a thread question; "What is the most important part of a system" .......which does somewhat answer your question. i don’t feel you can assign percentages, since the process is dynamic and builds on itself.....and there are too many starting points and variations and matters of preference.

but i still see things this way generally. i’m only linking this since i don’t want to derail the nice thread away from the "imaging" focus.

https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/1399899

as far as room tuning and how it relates to imaging; i’ve posted links to how i did my personal process back in 2015 before. it starts with having a personal reference sound. sometimes that is the issue; we all don’t possess a locked in reference to chase to guide us. sometimes we delegate our system character to a dealer, or friend and follow their advice. it’s s perfectly valid way to go and honest. but better is when you do have the light go on and you know where you are going and so can attack it yourself. then; if you are lucky enough to have a dedicated space where you have the flexibility to be able to do what you want; then it’s doable.

here are those room tuning links to what i did back in 2015. lots of details. and note that i had been in my purpose built dedicated room for 11 years in 2015, so i had crashed and burned a number of times and underwent a baptism of fire to get to the point of my final 9 month long dash to success.

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/almost-free-and-4-inches-the-final-1.17389/

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/almost-free-and-4-inches-the-final-1.17389/page-3#post-314941

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/suck-out-fixed-i-think.18116/

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/suck-out-fixed-i-think.18116/page-2#post-329496

IME, the best sound image system was with Quad 57 with a dinky real old tube power amp in 1990. The sound images floated like a ghost between speakers. The flocking of guitar images were like audio notes dancing on the air. I could see and feel lips of a female singer. My audio-quest started that day. I had a music system (Inkel Concerto) on 1979 and few other systems until 1990.

I had below system in Black.

The best sound images I made was with Avalon Eclipse, Jadis Defy-7, ML-26 around 1997. I played with Avalon speaker sounds which had many options such as tweeter covers and sound damper pad.

I think the sound image is the most important part in hi-end audio. It is an art and very special. I will recreate those ghost images later if possible.

No. I change my mind. I don’t think so. I won’t play with those ghost images again. Why? It is not that special now. I have a natural sound system now. The ghost sound images are dry and tasteless sound images to compare the original natural sound system I have. I don’t think I’ll like those embossed (outlined) ghost like sound images from a conventional system now. And I must endure with the sound coloration, glare and veil from those systems. I won’t waste my time for ghost images from un-natural sound.

Also, I don’t think my ears will be happy with those harsh sounds. The ghost sound images are the combination of harsh sound of certain freq and reflection sounds (from walls and ceiling) of speaker distortion sounds.

I know many of you don’t hear my video sound correctly because your ears are tuned for your audio system which is un-natural sound which you’ve been hearing for life from your audio, your car, church, Disneyland, etc. To those ears, the original music sound much different from what I hear. Many of you earned seasoned ears through decades. So, you remember it took weeks to months to open your ears for a special gear. It is not easy to hear the original music and my videos correctly for those biased ears. The original music is a natural sound and it won’t take long time to earn open ears for seasoned ears but it’ll still take some time with concentration (search and try to hear the singer’s mouth and voice images in the sound-stage).

The original song is recorded directly from a singer’s mouth to Mic (1-2 foot distance?) in a treated room. So, live-recording video must sound the original music plus the room. So, there is an sound difference between the orig music and my live-recording video. Alex/WTA

to be honest when I am at a live music event, I don't listen for the sound stage. I believe my eyes 😊

@grislybutter  There is no sound stage at most live concerts.

@patrickdowns  Nice beginning!

I was born in 54. Up till age 4 my dad had to play me records on his Zenith console system. I could not reach the top. I pestered him constantly to play records. On my 4th birthday my parents went out to dinner, I guess, leaving us alone with Mrs. Viles, our elderly babysitter. They came back at something like 11 PM and dropped this large brown cube at my feet in bed. Dad asked me to guess what it was. I do not remember coming up with an answer other than it is a box. I could not think that it would be something so precious as a record player. It was a Zenith portable with the same Cobra  tonearm my dad's big system had except it was black. His was a tan color. At first my father would not let me touch it! I had to get them to put on a record, but now I could easily watch how to do it. So during the daytime, with my dad at work, I grabbed my mother and requested that she watch. I did everything perfectly. It took her another week to talk my dad into letting me use it by myself and away we go. Walk On By was one of my favorites. 

Listen to a lot of systems, listen to live acoustic music. You would be very surprised at what you can do at a relatively low price. Don't guess and lose all your assumptions. Measure. Get a good mike, Earthworks makes the best, and a measurement program. See what your room is doing, where the problems are. This will guide your acoustic management. You have to use your ears to authenticate results and compare with what you've heard on the best systems. How equal are the two channels. Any differences greater than 3 dB are certainly an issue. How committed are you to your speakers? Do you plan on upgrading? If so, don't waste a lot of money on this system. Read the Benchmark Post in Misc Audio. I think this is great advice. Good for them!! You are building a system around speakers dealing with their specific issues over time. This is an evolutionary process. If your speakers are shy in the bass you add subwoofers and a two way crossover. If you are clipping on loud passages you need a bigger amp, and so forth. It has always been a game for me to build a state of the art system without spending stupid money by researching and choosing components carefully. 

@mikelavigne ,

Thanks so much, re "here are those room tuning links to what i did back in 2015."

I prefer the "without" wavetouch. Sounds like you’ve removed the body and dynamics.

Similarly, in the thread when the option of the cuts includes the original, the MBLs, and the wavetouch, I preferred the original. The MBLs sounded too thin (maybe almost "tinny") and the wavetouch sounded contrived.

Perhaps musicians listen about as well as we would performing.

?!

I wonder if you are thinking about some 19 yr old punk rocker screaming at a bar into a 300 dollar plastic PA kit.

I am not a professional musician (not my livelihood), but, I’ve been known to be strapped to a violin (piano to a lesser extent) since I was single digits old. Are you implying that the average "audiophile" I run into at shows could hear a violin better than me? In fact, I have a few different violins. I could play/record a few different pieces on 2 of them and I can safely say you wouldn’t be able to say which is which. To me, the difference is night and day (must be some kinda voodoo indeed).

I know my place... A friend of mine is a sax guy, who’s been tied to it longer than I have to my instrument. Do I hear it better than he? Absolutely not! Another friend of mine is a Ghanaian musician who only lives a couple of miles from me. I certainly ain’t no expert of him. His way off describing music would sound quite bizarre to some, but, he is also the most golden eared bat I’ve ever known.

When I’ve done blind tests with gear swaps, the "audiophiles" I’ve known have always failed by a mile. I could trick em all day long. 😁 The guys who reliably pass such tests are the musicians I know.

Strange thing is...You seem to be dismissing decades of dedication and pain one may through with an instrument...just like that. Well, frankly, I don’t give a crap..., but, sure, Okie dokie.

I am sure you are right because if i am not a musician i learned experimenting with acoustics for 2 years non stop that we learned how to hear and how to listen...It is true for sound as it is for music from all cultures...

This training has nothing to do with taste ...

Many audiophiles if we read threads think that acoustics concepts are related to acoustic panels and are mere  secondary tweaks compared to gear price tags.. ...

When I’ve done blind tests with gear swaps, the "audiophiles" I’ve known have always failed by a mile. I could trick em all day long. 😁 The guys who reliably pass such tests are the musicians I know.

Strange thing is...You seem to be dismissing decades of dedication and pain one may through with an instrument...just like that. Well, frankly, I don’t give a crap..., but, sure, Okie dokie.

toddalin

I prefer the "without" wavetouch. Sounds like you’ve removed the body and dynamics.

I thank you for your time to listen my video and for your honest feedback!

I expect that since your ears are used to your system which sounds good forwarded focus sound and bit aggressive (in good way) if I remember correctly.

The sound "dynamic" can be strong and big sound. My system can be louder but I recorded my video at reasonable volume.

Another meaning of "sound dynamic" is ability to show subtle nuances in reproduction audio. And I think my system does that well. Again, I explained (my last post) why many of you can’t hear my system correctly (takes some time to be able to hear it) since my system is only natural sound system in the world.

Similarly, in the thread when the option of the cuts includes the original, the MBLs, and the wavetouch, I preferred the original. The MBLs sounded too thin (maybe almost "tinny") and the wavetouch sounded contrived.

Again. Thank you for your honest feedback!

The original music is always best. No reproduction audio beats the original music. I put the original music and my video together to show they are natural sounds.

In my other post (link below), the best sounding MBL system ($million) and my humble system (sounds contrived tho) are at least comparable. MBL is using a master tape. My system is playing downloaded YT video (worse than MP3) and still show good musicality.

The original music is recorded from singer’s mouth to mic direct (1~2 feet) in studio. And my video is the reproduction audio plus the sound of room. Alex/WTA

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/looking-for-the-next-level-in-imaging?page=2

What I‘m saying is, if you take a cross section of musicians the percentage that have high end stereo systems and take time to listen intently is likely no different than the general population. I‘m not saying they can‘t hear their instruments. Years of playing and practice brings a unique sensitivity to the sound of musical instruments and voice. No question musicians can hear the subtle variations between instruments to such an extent as to identify time period and maker of an instrument. And the same is true for an experienced audiophile. They can hear things and identify sounds many of us would miss.

To brag about tricking people makes no sense. Lots of ways technology is used to fool our senses. And to estimate the sensitivity of someone else‘s hearing without a formal hearing test seems foolhardy. How can we even estimate our own hearing ability without a formal hearing test?  But a formal hearing test is just one factor.  Learning to listen is just as important.

Scene from, Kung Fu, the TV show ca. 1970.  “Old man, how is it that you could hear the grasshopper at my feet.  Young man, how is it that you could not?“

Get yourself a pair of LRS+ with the right electronics and sit back and enjoy superb resolution, staging, and imaging until you find your solution.  

For an average sized room... "it don't get no better" than the LRS+... no matter what the price.  Very much like the ESL 57's.  

And when (if) you find your solution... and... you think an investment of 50-100 times the price of the LRS+ is justified... you can move the LRS+ to your office or bedroom, because you definitely won't be selling them.  

The LRS+ is great in a small room, I use one in my office. Though the lowest model from these guys may have more resolution. They also have models that go up to $50k.

Diptyque audio - Hauts-parleurs plans Haute-Fidélité - REFERENCE

However, for me if want a large sound stage and imagining I would look at a KEF Blade Meta (or 2 Meta).

My Livingroom speakers, the Yamaha NS5000, also have great imaging but the Blade is the best at that for me. The Yamaha drivers sound better to me though.

counterpoint incoming.

context, I still own ML CLSes (factory repaneled) and some larger maggies are in storage awaiting vacation home setup.... so I enjoy planar/dipole.

I've had good success with B&W and tekton monitors for imaging.

But my current setup trounces anything I've heard before regarding both imaging and soundstage. What changed? how much?

1) I dropped hoping to get the room to bounce my speaker sounds (or omni speakers) and added a lot of GIK diffusion panels on ceiling and side walls (4" thick and 1" offset) and corner traps and run an area rug on top of my wall to wall carpeting.

2) I toe'd in my speakers (not for 3-5' behind my listening position) but right at my face, even less room interactions... and most importantly, the next item took advantage of these 2 mods...

3) I deployed Bacch4mac.  It set me back less than 1/3rd of your lower end speaker budget number in the OP.

I happen to have a TV nearby so i keep the mac GUI up to quickly (mouseclick) A/B test the processing effects (you can keep the ORC/room correction engaged for both A/B/C so your EQ and level/gain isn't a factor in the "which sounds better").

Spring for the "Audiophile+" version with the webcam and the in-ear mics, then the software will calibrate viz your head movements during the setup process, so when listening, you're head is not in a vise.  also the ORC (eq/room correction) is quite good, I was running some "cut filters" in Roon to deal with 2 room modes, bit it made it "input dependent" so I was shopping for a DSP EQ.. no need now, here anything fed to the babyface appliance (part of the kit) gets processed for both EQ and spacial.

You'll need a mac mini, or they can include one. The founder (Edgar) sets things up with your via screen share like concierge service.

I've had 2 people over to demo.

1) I will run withouth Bacch-spacial, but with the ORC / EQ at a minimum for their baseline of their fav tracks....  sounds dynamic, balanced, solid stage and very much media/track dependent imaging.

2) I will engage the 2nd pre-set (still with ORC/EQ) but adding the spatial correction, and it gets... interesting, speakers truly disappear and things that are meant to be focused (a single singer's voice) become a laser vs. a flashlight.  wide chorale or live band setups are enveloping.  it's spooky without being distracting**

** on 1-2% of tracks, usually studio recordings, you'll hear an odd tambourine or single element truly at 2-3 o'clock or 8-9 o'clock and be like WTF no way the player would be in the 3rd row.  but on real recordings or where the engineering wasn't pushed too far. it's quite amazing.  worth auditioning, via their satisfaction guarantee.

who is this not for?  SET 1-3watt amps and low sensitivity speakers.  the system cuts (levels in ORC and among other things, phase work for the spacial) so Edgar shared the one setup where he couldn't get a satisfactory output was an SET tube amp with only modest sensitivity speakers.  (not problem in my case, Tekton Ulfbehrts with Buckeye Amps and BAT preamp).

if you're on the hunt for what you describe, try this, it may be for your or not, only your ears will know.

I get this without the Baach-spacial. Ever listen to Amused to Death?  The guy is talking at the far end of the room over my left shoulder.

In this sequence HAL is behind/overhead.

I got the same spatial information from my modified speakers (low cost) ? so ?

😁😊

I get this without the Baach-spacial. Ever listen to Amused to Death? The guy is talking at the far end of the room over my left shoulder.