Soundstaging and Imaging: The Delusion about The Illusion


Soundstaging in a recording—be it a live performance or studio event—and it’s reproduction in the home has been the topic of many a discussion both in the forums and in the audio press. Yet, is a recording’s soundstage and imaging of individual participants, whether musicians or vocalists, things that one can truly perceive or are they merely illusions that we all are imagining as some sort of delusion?

https://www.stereophile.com/content/clowns-left-me-jokers-right

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Showing 2 responses by bdp24

Regarding tostadosunidos comments on the topic of the ability of a pair of speakers to reproduce depth:

I first heard the effect on the occasion of hearing a true high end system for the first time, a system being delivered and set up by Bill Johnson at his new ARC dealer in Livermore California (Bill was a pilot, and flew his own plane to dealer locations). It was a pair of the Magneplanar Tympani T-1 loudspeakers (which ARC was then distributing) bi-amped with a PC-1 passive x/o and D51 and D75 power amps, source a Thorens TD-125 Mk.2 turntable/ARC prototype arm/Decca Blue pickup into an SP-3 pre-amp.

Bill put a British EMI pressing of Holst’s The Planets on the table, and when the Jupiter movement played, there it was---the front row of the orchestra instruments were on the plane of the Tympanis, the back row (percussion) waaaay back from that plane. I had closed my eyes as the movement began, and at the shock of hearing the extreme depth of field opened them. I found myself looking at the wall behind the speakers, amazed by how much closer the wall was than the back of the orchestra appeared to be. The back of the orchestra appeared to be further away than the wall!

When an orchestra is recorded with a very small mic set-up (I believe EMI engineers employed the Decca 3-mic "tree" technique---3 mics facing the orchestra), the sound from the instruments furthest away from the mics are picked up by the mics later in time than those closest to them. When played back, that time differential is reproduced as the difference in distance. In contrast, a recording of an orchestra made employing close mic’ing contains no such depth information, so should be reproduced without it as well.


@whart said it all.

By the way Bill, The Record Collector in Hollywood was the best Classical music LP store I’ve ever been in. Domestic, import, the owner had it all, and was an expert in the music. The best non-Classical was Village Music in Mill Valley, not far into Marin County after you cross over The Golden Gate Bridge. VM specialized in Roots music (Blues, Jazz, Hillbilly, Country, Bluegrass, Rockabilly, Garage, Psych, Reggae, etc.), and sent out a great regularly-published (bi-monthly, iirc) catalog in the 1970-80’s. They had a separate room just for 10" 78’s. All the good Bay Area musicians shopped there, as did those passing through town on tour. One day that I was there James Burton came in; it was surreal!

Both shops went drastically downhill after they emptied their shelves of LP’s and filled them with CD’s. Same with Rhino Records (the retail store, not the record label) in Westwood. Remember Phast Phreddie?! Aw, the good ol’ days ;-) .