Speaker Imaging - Do you hear a line, or do you hear an arc??

I have a pretty big room....10' ceilings....12,000 cubic feet.  Speakers are Salk Veracity STs...9' apart and 30" out from the rear wall.  No room treatments...lots of glass, ceramic tile, and drywall...with a few area rugs and furniture....normal listening volume around 80db...max peaks of 85db.


As of now, I don't stream...only CDs.  Almost never is the soundstage for a whole CD an arc...but almost every CD has at least one song that has lots of depth and could be described as an arc.

Here are just two "arc" examples from some really old CDs...Al Stewart, "On the Border - Live Version"  and Steppenwolf, "Hoochie Coochie Man".

Or, a little more recent....Josh Turner, "Long Black Train"

Mostly, I would describe the overall sound as sitting at one of the front tables at a medium size club...you can perceive/recognize depth, width and height and occasionally when the song was mixed with a lot of ambience, it almost seems like immersion. 

First...THANKS Eric....for so darn many thought provoking threads that you have started!

I agree with the hemisphere/half bubble description.  No doubt that often the slightest change in speaker positioning will affect the overall sound...sometimes significantly. 


And, the straight line, arc, hemisphere soundstage is maybe most significantly influenced by what the recording engineer did with ambience, echo, reverb and delay....and then how your speakers and room interpret/project what he intended.

For a long time, I was obsessed with the soundstage...but realizing that perfection is probably an illusion in this area, once I had a good stage, I turned my attention to tone...especially piano, drums, horns and voices.