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What should you hear?

I'm new to the hobby and curious what type of imaging sound stage you should hear.  I have a pair of Vandersteen 2ce signatures and they sound great.  What I find however is that the imaging, sound stage is very dependent on the recording.   

Norah Jones?  She sounds like she's sitting right in the room.  It's amazing.  

One I'm particularly interested in learning more about is Brubek's Take Five.   The saxophone images great.  Sounds dead center.  The piano however is clearly coming from the right hand speaker and the drums are clearly coming from the left.  Is this typical? 

Thanks for your input and tolerating a "newbie" question. 
mvrooman1526

Showing 2 responses by reubent

reubent
7,093 posts
 
@mvrooman1526 - That particular Brubeck recording is likely supposed to sound that way. It is the way the stereo mix was mastered. It is referred to as hard panning. This means a particular instrument was mixed only (hard) to the left speaker or only (hard) to the right speaker. Another instrument (or vocalist) could be mixed equally in the left and the right channels, creating an image centered between the speakers.

The hard panning of Brubeck's piano is actually mentioned in a thread on the Steve Hoffman site. Here's a link. Read the whole thread if you have the time, but the Brubeck mention is in post # 28:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/stereo-hard-panning-love-it-or-hate-it.123731/

Enjoy your new hobby. 
reubent
7,093 posts
 
Many old stereo recordings, especially jazz trio/quartet had the individual instruments recorded only on one channel, or one instrument on the left, one on the right and one in the center. It's very common with older stereo jazz recordings.

Google "hard panning stereo" for information on this type of recording technique. 
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