Help with Soundstage and Impact of Amps

[MusicMutt]

Newbi here, but not new to home audio. I've been a wannabe audiophile since my college days 30 some years ago, but my equipment has always been fairly average.

This might get a bit long-winded. Please bear with me.

I'm finally getting some new equipment and trying to set things up as best as possible. My "listening room" is just my finished basement which isn't really a great layout. It's a 500 sq-ft room in a sort of L shape. I'm limited on where the speakers can go, but I did start with them very far from the wall and wide and then slowly moved them back looking for the best mix of location (so my big dog doesn't knock them over) and soundstage.

I settled with them about 30" from the wall to rear of the speaker and ~7.25' center to center with a slight toe in. I can't really do any more spacing due to room shape, layout and location of the door, but they sound almost as good here as when they were 9' apart and another 6-8" out. My seating position is about 9' from the center or 9.5' if measured directly to the speaker front (an isosceles triangle not equilateral).

Anyway, speakers are Kef R11 Meta and my initial amp was just my Yamaha RX-A1080 AVR. All things considered, it didn't sound bad at all and actually quite good. Depending on the source of course, but good recording had a wide soundstage and some instrument separation and vocals tended to be centered and sort of high up like slightly above the speakers.

I wanted a better 2 channel integrated amp so I got the Marantz Model 30. This did sound a bit better, maybe more clear or crisp and similar or maybe slightly better soundstage, but the amp had a defect so I returned it. I switched to a Marantz Model 40n mainly because I wanted the streamer integrated and wanted to hear class A/B vs the class D.

WOW, this amp has a VERY different soundstage. I was not expecting such a radical difference. Vocals are no longer centered but have an almost surround effect and the soundstage is much wider. It's like sitting in the middle with sound all around. On the one hand, I like this as it's very immersive, but I sort of miss the vocals or specific instruments being centered.

To give you a specific example, I played Birds by Dominique Fils-Aimé. With the Model 30 her main vocals are very centered with the harmonies in some parts being wide and somewhat of a surround feeling. With the Model 40n it's like she is on both sides of me simultaneously. I don't dislike this effect, but I think I preferred it on the Model 30. However, the overall sound of the Model 40n is great. At least compared to what I've experienced.

My question is, what the HECK is going on? Why such a huge difference with the same speakers and placement with just a different integrated amp? Is one of these more "accurate" to the intended sound? Any suggestions or advice given the limits on moving my speakers much from where they are?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Golfx]

Sounds like an upmixer setting or improved room calibration?

 

[MusicMutt]

I don't think either Marantz has a room calibration option or at least I didn't do anything.

However...

I did some testing. I thought maybe it was a toe in issue so I moved the speakers around a bit. I pulled them a bit more forward and toed in more and it seemed to help but not a ton and I didn't really like having a lot of toe nor that far into the room. I also felt like some tracks were left biased even though balance was centered on the amp (actually tone/balance circuit is turned off).

I decided to experiment and switch the L/R channels to see if it would now be right biased (so in the recording not my speaker placement) but after pulling the left channel cables it looked like they had been inverted (+ in the - and vice versa). I didn't notice before pulling them so not 100% sure, but after putting them in correctly the issue seems to have mostly disappeared.

Of course, I moved the speakers around before that so that probably affects things too, BUT, it may have been just stupid user error.

However, If I had the left channel out of phase, I would have expected a loss of bass or a collapsed soundstage but in some ways it seemed like even more bass and very wide soundstage. Midnight Black Earth (Bohren & der Club of Gore) for example had no lack of bass. Same with the upright in the Dominique Fils-Aimé track.

I need to do some more testing and move the speakers back and see if it's better. I suppose hooking up speakers backwards should be a banable offense or something...

 

[lovinthehd]

Newbi here, but not new to home audio. I've been a wannabe audiophile since my college days 30 some years ago, but my equipment has always been fairly average.

This might get a bit long-winded. Please bear with me.

I'm finally getting some new equipment and trying to set things up as best as possible. My "listening room" is just my finished basement which isn't really a great layout. It's a 500 sq-ft room in a sort of L shape. I'm limited on where the speakers can go, but I did start with them very far from the wall and wide and then slowly moved them back looking for the best mix of location (so my big dog doesn't knock them over) and soundstage.

I settled with them about 30" from the wall to rear of the speaker and ~7.25' center to center with a slight toe in. I can't really do any more spacing due to room shape, layout and location of the door, but they sound almost as good here as when they were 9' apart and another 6-8" out. My seating position is about 9' from the center or 9.5' if measured directly to the speaker front (an isosceles triangle not equilateral).

Anyway, speakers are Kef R11 Meta and my initial amp was just my Yamaha RX-A1080 AVR. All things considered, it didn't sound bad at all and actually quite good. Depending on the source of course, but good recording had a wide soundstage and some instrument separation and vocals tended to be centered and sort of high up like slightly above the speakers.

I wanted a better 2 channel integrated amp so I got the Marantz Model 30. This did sound a bit better, maybe more clear or crisp and similar or maybe slightly better soundstage, but the amp had a defect so I returned it. I switched to a Marantz Model 40n mainly because I wanted the streamer integrated and wanted to hear class A/B vs the class D.

WOW, this amp has a VERY different soundstage. I was not expecting such a radical difference. Vocals are no longer centered but have an almost surround effect and the soundstage is much wider. It's like sitting in the middle with sound all around. On the one hand, I like this as it's very immersive, but I sort of miss the vocals or specific instruments being centered.

To give you a specific example, I played Birds by Dominique Fils-Aimé. With the Model 30 her main vocals are very centered with the harmonies in some parts being wide and somewhat of a surround feeling. With the Model 40n it's like she is on both sides of me simultaneously. I don't dislike this effect, but I think I preferred it on the Model 30. However, the overall sound of the Model 40n is great. At least compared to what I've experienced.

My question is, what the HECK is going on? Why such a huge difference with the same speakers and placement with just a different integrated amp? Is one of these more "accurate" to the intended sound? Any suggestions or advice given the limits on moving my speakers much from where they are?

Thanks for any help.

Something's wrong if your amp, more likely your setup, if it affects soundstage that much. You likely just need to eliminate poor comparison methods

 

[ski2xblack]

but after pulling the left channel cables it looked like they had been inverted (+ in the - and vice versa)...after putting them in correctly the issue seems to have mostly disappeared.

That was it. A speaker wired out of phase certainly wouldn't "collapse the sounstage", but it would produce that weird, disembodied effect you heard. It does usually cancel bass (usually more mono in the mix), so maybe that recording had enough L/R channel difference at those lower registers that it didn't. ‍

 

[MusicMutt]

That was it. A speaker wired out of phase certainly wouldn't "collapse the sounstage", but it would produce that weird, disembodied effect you heard. It does usually cancel bass (usually more mono in the mix), so maybe that recording had enough L/R channel difference at those lower registers that it didn't. ‍

Thanks for the info. In all my years of setting up systems I don't think I've ever made such a dumb mistake, but I was moving wires around a lot so guess I got sloppy.

The weird thing was I kind of liked it. It created a very enveloping sound but lost the instrument/vocal separation. I must have had it that way for about a day and most things sounded good with good bass. I was listening to a lot of dark jazz so maybe that type of music was less susceptible to the out of phase speakers as that's kind of the effect a lot that music is going for anyway. Vocals made it more obvious something was amiss.

 

[Kingnoob]

Thanks for the info. In all my years of setting up systems I don't think I've ever made such a dumb mistake, but I was moving wires around a lot so guess I got sloppy.

The weird thing was I kind of liked it. It created a very enveloping sound but lost the instrument/vocal separation. I must have had it that way for about a day and most things sounded good with good bass. I was listening to a lot of dark jazz so maybe that type of music was less susceptible to the out of phase speakers as that's kind of the effect a lot that music is going for anyway. Vocals made it more obvious something was amiss.

so it was just wired wrong?
Did the Yamaha struggle to power them?

 

[lovinthehd]

Soundstage is largely what is recorded. Your speakers may help. The electronics unless in some sort of dsp mode, won't.

 

[MusicMutt]

so it was just wired wrong?
Did the Yamaha struggle to power them?

Yeah, that's my guess. I must have flipped one set when I swapped from the Yamaha to the Marantz.

I think the Yamaha was doing fine. I would get louder than I ever needed it to. It sounded pretty good too and with the Marantz I'm not hearing any huge differences, but I don't have a way to do a proper A/B.

On the one hand, I probably didn't gain much by getting the Marantz, but I wanted to try a 2 channel setup and I can also use it to take some of the load off the Yamaha for movies.

 

[Kingnoob]

Yeah, that's my guess. I must have flipped one set when I swapped from the Yamaha to the Marantz.

I think the Yamaha was doing fine. I would get louder than I ever needed it to. It sounded pretty good too and with the Marantz I'm not hearing any huge differences, but I don't have a way to do a proper A/B.

On the one hand, I probably didn't gain much by getting the Marantz, but I wanted to try a 2 channel setup and I can also use it to take some of the load off the Yamaha for movies.

your using it with the Yamaha for movies?
I haven’t tried an integrated amp yet. But they get really expensive and cheap ones have less power than my avr. Like this one. I’d need better speakers to justify one, and I mostly use a receiver for everything. Lots of avr also have pure direct mode mine does.

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_022AS301B/Yamaha-A-S301.html?tp=34948

 

[MusicMutt]

your using it with the Yamaha for movies?
I haven’t tried an integrated amp yet. But they get really expensive and cheap ones have less power than my avr. Like this one. I’d need better speakers to justify one, and I mostly use a receiver for everything. Lots of avr also have pure direct mode mine does.

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_022AS301B/Yamaha-A-S301.html?tp=34948

If I'm being honest, I don't think I gained much. The Yamaha is an older Aventage model but ran my 5.1 system just fine and to volume levels much higher than I needed. It worked fine with the new Kefs as well.

But... after upgrading the speakers I wanted to try a "proper" 2 channel set up for music, but I also wanted to be able to still play movies without moving speaker wires around so I wanted an integrated with HT bypass option.

I can't really do fast switching A/B testing and if I could maybe I could tell a difference between the Marantz and the Yamaha, but just listening to one and then the other there isn't enough of a difference to say one is better than the other - at least to my ears.

As for lower watts, I don't think that matters much. You can find cheap amps with more power but that certainly doesn't mean they are better. This 70 watt amp gets plenty loud. Much louder than I'd ever listen and at not even half volume.