Soudstage Height?

your observations don't surprise me at all...soundstaging is a delicate thing. i've seen dramatic changes in depth, height and width by changes various components, especially amps and preamps.

as for what gives a sounstage height, i'm no expert but i suppose it's just very low-level detail, e.g. reflections off the recording studio floor and ceiling?

You introduced at least TWO variables into the equation. Obviously, the amp was one and the interconnect was two. Where you had power feeding the amp from might be variable three. If the amp had not been used in a while or had fully settled in would be #4. The total combination of these things ( changing just one of those parameters ) would be variable #5. With all of that in mind, you really do need to experiment quite a bit when changing components. Just because product A, B, C, & D liked being set up one way does not mean that E will work optimally under those conditions. You might have all of the "right stuff" to make things tick, but you just don't have them configured optimally for THAT specific component. Sean
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With all the interesting opinions that you will hear here, this should be as good as a cable thread. I am not an engineer or an audio professional of any sort, so I ask questions of people who are, or I read what they write. For example, one noted and technically competent reviewer with whom I have exchanged emails from time to time says simply that there is NO height information in a stereo recording. You can't get up and down from left and right. (You can get width and depth - if you think about it, it's not hard to understand.)

Writing in the May 1993 issue of Stereophile, Jack English said "many engineers hold that it is not possible for a stereo recording to contain height information." In the August 1993 issue of Stereophile, J Gordon Holt explains: "Although our ears can locate the height of sound sources in front of us, stereo microphones and reproducing systems are not usually configured to handle height information. (Only a full Ambisonic system is inherently capable of it.) I've read something of this sort in TAS also.

I think I get more of a sense of height from some recordings than from some others, but never a difference on the same recording through different equipment. Also, I used to think that I perceived more height from lps than cds, but I am not sure about that anymore.

You may be reacting to a difference in size resulting from a difference in loudness. Every recording, I am told, has an ideal playback sound pressure level, and I notice an apparent increase in size, and therefore height, when I turn up the volume sometimes.

Paul

Paul brings up some interesting points. Depending on the type of microphone used and the placement of each mic, i DO think that a sense of "height" is possible in recordings. This has to do with the polar pick-up pattern that the individual mic displays. Outside of the frequency response, output level and maximum spl capability, this is one aspect of a mic that most recording engineers have to familiarize themselves with.

Since each mic design has different "capture angles" or polar patterns, the amount of "height", "width", "depth" and level of "ambience" courtesy of "direct vs reflected" sound can be drastically altered by the type of mic used and where it is located when recording. Combine this with the acoustics of the individual hall or studio used to make the recording, and you have a pretty drastic variation of why / how some recordings sound SO different from each other. How much of that information makes it through all of the mixing, equilization, compression, mastering, etc... is another story. Sean
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Is the huge room filling "bloom" that some gear creates the same as "height"? I've gotten this huge "bloom effect" with an amp, 2 power cords, and two different sets of tubes in my pre-amp. But I don't like this-- un-natural to me-- effect, and always go back to the more conventional strong centered stereo image with good width and depth, but a pretty constant height. I gather that some audiophiles actually seek the huge diffuse bloomy character? Just an observation and thought. Cheers. Craig