Not trying to be too broad or vague but if you go to a live venue you aren’t listening in stereo or surround. You are listening mono with all the natural acoustics, sound stage reproduction and other things present. When we try to reproduce that we worry about speaker placement and many other techniques to reproduce a natural soundstage, more often than not it’s a poor reproduction. Are we cheating ourselves with all this electronic wizardry rather than using high quality speakers that can reproduce what was actually recorded? This is something that has always bothered me. Music isn’t stereo or surround, music is music and it does what it does wherever it is played and I just want to hear music. I apologize if my language doesn’t describe what I’m trying to say well, perhaps others can help me be more concise with what I’m trying to say.
A very good question. As you can see by the number of responses, some of them lengthy, that answers vary all over the place.
Let’s try to define the terms “soundstage” and while we’re at it, “imaging”. Understand that these are both illusions that stereo and multichannel sound reproduction systems try to create for listeners. I tried looking them up online.
Soundstage and
imaging are generally used to define the ability of speakers to create the illusion of a realistic sounding three-dimensional space and position for individual sounds within that space.
Soundstage refers to the apparent width, depth and height of the recorded sound played by the speakers. This requires at least two speakers and a stereo a signal. Obviously, speaker placement relative to the listener has an effect. So does the quality, or lack of it, in the original recording.
The term “
imaging” is a bit more difficult. According to J. Gordon Holt's audio glossary, "
imaging is a sound system's ability to float stable and specific phantom images, reproducing the original sizes and locations of the instruments across the recording’s original soundstage." Holt's description of
soundstaging further elaborates, "The accuracy with which a sound system conveys audible information about the size, shape, and acoustical characteristics of the original recording space and the placement of the performers within it."
I find it easier to understand these two definitions if I apply
imaging to the ability of a
single loudspeaker to create the illusion of floating stable and specific phantom images, and
soundstage to
at least two loudspeakers playing music recorded at least in stereo. Not everyone agrees with this, but I find it helps me to talk about it.
When I compare speakers for sound quality, I listen to a single speaker first. It's fairly easy to judge or measure things like how loud it gets when driven by 1 watt, how much it distorts sound when driven loud, how well it reproduces the audio range without coloring or altering the sound, how widely and evenly it disperses sound. But how do you judge imaging in a single speaker? I use a recording of one or several unamplified instruments or voices that I already know well. I try to visualize the musicians. Are they little musicians packed inside the speaker cabinet, or do they emerge from the box into the room? I listen at low volume, and gradually increase the volume, as I walk about the room, listening while directly in front and off to the sides. Some speakers never allow the musicians to step outside the box, others can create this image but only at higher volumes. The best speakers create the illusion of phantom images at lower and higher volumes.
Then I try listening to two speakers in stereo. Not surprisingly, the best stereo soundstages come from speakers that are good at imaging when you listen to them as a single speaker.
If you make a list of the top 10 features of audio gear that most contribute to good imaging and soundstage, the first 8 or 9 would be loudspeakers. And those other 1 or 2 places on the list would be all the other electronics.
