Sound stage height??

Recordings matter. :) 

I will say that imaging suffers in the direction of poor treatment. If you have bare floors, may be worth throwing some blankets and pillows on the floor between and behind the speakers as experiments. Also, what happens if you tilt the speakers up or lower your listening position? 

Bet,

E

I do have hard wood floors in here, just an area rug between me and the speakers...............might try something else, maybe thicker rug or a few more panels on the ceiling...............it's only 7'8", kinda low.............I can also adjust the tilt on the speakers...........Listening to Michael Jackson right now, good recording, but on some songs he's only two feet tall........on others everything is at the proper height..........weird.........I get this on some % of discs, but not all........even stranger if it's room acoustics and/or treatment. I'd expect it to be fairly uniform if that were the case, but certainly worth playing with...............thanks

well, I don't know if my suggestions will "fix" your imaging and recording problems, but I do think you'll find some things you like about the experiment. :) And yeah, ceilings matter. 

Thanks folks...............Yes, I have found that as I took more care with speaker setup and addressed the worst of the room demons, that it's become quite easy to tell differences in recordings...................that's not always a GOOD thing..............Some music that I used to enjoy listening to, now doesn't get played as much.......cuz it don't sound so good. LOL.........On the + side is that when it's good, it's REALLY good. .........Life in audiophile land I guess..........I do plan to add some additional room treatment and perhaps adjusting the tilt of the speakers and toe in a bit might improve things..............Not really complaining about my "sound", quite happy with that overall, but as you say, the better the setup gets, the more I "hear" things that weren't obvious before.

OP, look up the Vandersteen setup instructions online. Very detailed. Vandies live or die from setups. You must adhere to Richard's instructions or you will not get the best sound from your 3As.

Tom

Thanks Tom. I do have them set up pretty much according to The Man. Firing length wise down the room. One third of the way into the room, one fifth from side walls. Maybe some minor adjustments in positioning might snap things in a bit better...a few inches one way or another might be worth the time.

I'll just be another that says speaker set-up is extremely important and room acoustics. I cannot remember how many times I thought I had my speakers just right and then a slight adjustment locked everything in. What made me feel I needed to adjust? Every time I improve my room acoustics.

Thanks Slaw, and agreed. .......Theoretically, I have them about where they're supposed to be for optimum bass response, but theory is theory and each room is unique, so the math only gives you a starting point............I'll be playing with things some more in a week or so. Wrapping up some non-related remodeling right now............I tried both RV's recommendations as well as the Cardas setup....both of which are actually similar mathematically...........I'm sure I can optimize things further as soon as I have a couple days to "play".

Enjoy talking to you folks. I have a lot of music loving friends, but they're not audiophiles and have very basic systems, poorly set up, so they get lost pretty fast with this stuff.........They just hit play and get on with the day.

FWIW: I used the Jim Smith method for rough set-up. After that, it's all (listening). I do not use anything but my experience and hours & hours of listening compared to live shows. So it will be kind of an ongoing experiment.

Not familiar with that method, I'll do a search............Yes, ultimately it just takes patience and time to dial everything in.

Just a quick interrupt to reiterate that ye olde trial and error methodologies that rely on listening a little, moving a little cannot locate the unique optimum positions for speakers in a given room. It’s like trying to solve a few simultaneous equations in more than a few unknowns. Plus people assume wider apart is better generally.

@shadowcat2016,

Get a copy of "Get Better Sound" by Jim Smith. It's a fun and easy read. Not technical. Good luck.

Is there an echo in here? 🤗

geoffk

Good point.

slaw

Amazon has da book, I'll be ordering it this evening. As long as I don't have to solve quadratic equations, I'm sure it will be helpful :)

Thank you gentlemen.

I have Vandy 3a Sigs and when I added the Tice The Titan to my Tice Power block the height of the soundstage increased 2 feet. Blew my mind.

Ordered Jim Smiths book, it's on the way. In the meantime I adjusted the tilt a few degrees on the Vandy's...........that did lift the sound stage somewhat, perhaps more is needed. When I have some time to play I'll see what I can do to fine tune my setup........tilt, placement, toe in, room treatment, etc..

Don't hate me qdrone, but I can't for the life of me understand  why most of the vaunted AC treatment up front should make any difference to the sound. I've always thought and perhaps I'm wrong,  that the level of equipment that most of us have is designed to filter out any birdies, bogeys or what have you from the wall socket well before the audio chain. A properly designed, filtered and regulated power supply should be immune to all but the worst AC. 

That said, I have not personally played with these types of tweaks, nor have I had the opportunity to experience them in someone else's system, so I'm merely expressing an opinion based on no actual experience..................If you got a significant difference and improvement in your gear, then obviously it did SOMETHING useful.

I never question anyone else's experience, but sometimes I do have trouble getting my head around it from a technical perspective.............Why, for instance should a $100 ultra wall outlet make any difference at all to your gear? All it has to do is transfer the AC to your power cord(s)........It either does that, or it doesn't. If the outlet is worn out and the plugs are loose you could conceivably get arcing and heating from a high resistance connection.............and burn your house down........Aside from that I cannot imagine why a Hubbel outlet should be any better..........sonically.......... than a $5 Leviton from Home Depot. People buy em, people swear by em, I don't question their experience.

Many things in audio seem to defy technical logic, yet people swear by them and spend serious money on them.............My experience has been largely limited to my own gear and I'm not much of a tweaker, so perhaps I'm missing out :).......Ignorance is bliss..........I'm here to learn from others.....regardless of whether what works for them makes any sense to me.

Sorry, kinda got off topic there.......thanks for the inputs :)

@shadowcat2016,

If you start to really get into this hobby, I predict your now, unfounded concerns will become a thing of the past.

slaw

Getting into the hobby far deeper than ever, now that I'm retired and have time for it. The results thus far have been impressive for me. When I finally did a fairly good room treatment, for instance , the results amazed me, as did a complete re-layout and setup of the room itself...............Made me realize what I was missing all these years...........Now I'm wondering just how much more is possible, within budgetary constraints?.............Seems to be a journey with no clear end point. Guess I'll just enjoy the trip.