Soundstage and image height, does it exist?

It‘s not just the speakers.  Good isolation of the components and cabling, I found helps to sharpen and focus the images.  My current system, depending on the recording will paint a 3D soundstage that goes beyond the walls- if I close my eyes or turn out the lights.  It was fun af first.  I could close my eyes and hear the large sound stage and then open my eyes and see the walls cutting right through the band.  Now I can hear the full sound stage mostly with my eyes still open.  

Eric Clapton records are a good example.  On one he is standing.  His voice is about 6 feet high and his guitar is about 3-4 feet high.  On the Unplugged album, he is sitting and his voice is 4 feet high while his guitar is 3 feet high.  Several recordings do things like that.  Drums will be about 2-3 feet high and cymbals just a little higher up.  Other albums have everything at the same height- instruments and voices.  Some albums are a flat wall of sound while most have instruments and voices in various positions front to back as well as left to right.  Some Chorale pieces have voices from floor to ceiling- very dramatic.  Well recorded piano is interesting.  Sometimes the piano seems placed at a diagonal and sometimes it is at a right angle.  I can think of one recording where the piano is left to right on the stage.  Makes it feel like the piano is almost in my face.  Just depends on the recording.

I have used the Roger Waters track for a few years as one test for speaker placement.  My current speakers put the dogs at the extreme right far away and the talking man at my extreme left about 8 feet away.  I hear sounds behind me now and then.  Don‘t really care for that.

Vinyl used to be the best for a big open soundstage and images but my current digital side does the job just as well as vinyl now.   

Sounds stage beyond the speakers width is mostly room reflections. Try taking the speakers outside and see how they sound. I would bet they sound pretty different. 

Speakers outside would be similar to being in a hemianechoic chamber.  Good for testing but not much fun for listening.  The room has a lot to do with the imaging.

@richopp wrote:

… what I do know is that when Jim Winey decided to make Magnepan speakers 6' high, the listener was treated to a source that more closely mimicked the experience of being at a live concert.  The "sound stage" of a concert is the hall you listen to it in.  Most halls are designed to provide a quality listening experience that is as tall as the hall and as wide as the stage.

+1

The actual radiation field and its overall size and height is by far the most influential factor with regard to perceived realism and immersiveness of sound staging, as I see it. Again: with speakers there’s no escaping physics, inconvenient they may be to many. 

I certainly do get height from my system, but then my front wall is ~16 feet high and the back wall is ~7-1/2 feet high, so there could be some reflection adding to it.

If you want to hear height, the best thing I find is to listen to "sharp" percussion. Xylophone. marimba, glock, wood blocks, etc. always seem to come out higher.

A great example at 2:00:

https://youtu.be/6i24NjljMcM

Then of course there is the actual height of the speakers that can replicate the height of the actual instruments they are reproducing. For example, when I listen to the Big Red Supers, drum kits/solos come out very realistic as to their height. The aux woofer at the bottom of the cabinet reproduces the slam of the kick drum, whereas the 604’s horns are placed at the level of cymbols.