Gary Eickmeier wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:

Perusing the audiophile boards today, I come up on this:

//

"Here are some more audio phenomena that science cannot measu

1. Soundstage capability.
2. Correct tonality of instruments.

The soundstage thing I agree with. This is a perception that depends
on your stereo hearing, and there is no instrument that can
communicate what this sounds like in a given setup. Such a
measurement would be meaningless anyway, because each of us would
have to relate it to the actual sound anyway, so why do it.

What we CAN do is vary the parameters of the speaker and room and see
how each variable affects soundstaging, and thus learn what causes
what. In my experimentation, it is clear to me that what we are
hearing is a comination of the summing localization between the two
speakers, and between the speakers and the reflections of their
output from the room surfaces. If you pull the speakers out from the
front wall, for instance, you notice an immediate increase in depth
of imaging (soundstage), then if you push them back toward the wall,
the soundstage collapses into the speakers again. Same with sidewall
reflections. Bring them away from the sidewalls and you get more
spaciousness, especially with the more omnidirectional speakers. Then
you can experiment with radiatin pattern, and see the effects of
that. And so forth.
Gary Eickmeier

I absolutely agree with Gary. The effect of a wide soundstage can be
extended to the point that the soundstage includes the listener and the
instruments are heard all around you, you seem to be on the stage yourself.
I get this perception when I have my omnidirectional speakers only 2feet
away in the middle of the room. The instruments then seem to be 10 to 30
feet away and are arranged in a horseshoe shaped form around the center.
This is with an acoustic 2 mike recording. Uakti, Mapa, a Brazilian group.
--
ciao Ban
Bordighera, Italy