Recently a friend and I were comparing speaker cables in a high resolving tube system with electrostats, with both CD and vinyl sources. Several advantages we had: a very high ceiling height in his dedicated listening room and pretty sophisticated room treatments . Here is a rather simple test we use in comparing soundstage height: the listener in the "sweet spot" closes his eyes during a certain repeated passage, then points with a straight arm toward the particular instrument or vocals, usually in the centerstage. (We found several well-recorded percussion pieces were best to use for this experiment). After holding your arm/pointing for 10 to 20 seconds, open your eyes and visually mark ON THE REAR WAll the height/location of the image you ARE STILL pointing towards. Then, make the equipment or cable switch,replay the same passage with eyes closed, and point your arm at the same image/ instrument. The resulting change in your direction/height of pointing can be dramatic and unexpected. This is a weird,subjective experience because with your eyes closed while pointing, it seems more difficult to perceive a difference in image height in the A/B comparison. When you actually verify the comparison by visually marking the diffences on the rear wall, you may be in for a surprise. One caveat, I've never done this experiment in a room with ceiling less than 10 feet high. Damn, we do some weird stuff with this hobby...I hope my wife never walks in on me doing these experiments.
Soudstage Height?
The other night I experimented by using my Jolida 502B integrated as a preamp running through my well renowned solid state power amp. Things sounded okay but the biggest surprise was the amazing drop in the height of the soundstage. I went from tilting my head ever so slightly back to envision Diana Krall doing "Garden in the Rain" with the JoLida doing everything, to seeing her shrink to the height of my Kestrels via transistors.The depth seemed about same though. Can somebody explain to me what gives a soundstage height?