Soundstage - Too much?

perfectimage, perhaps i'm mistaken, but it's been my experience that sidewalls in close proximity to the speakers is what kills imaging, unless absorbent treatment is properly used, especially at the sounds' 1st-reflection point. i have found that most speakers image best when well-away from walls.

I agree Sedond, I have experienced stable images 6 feet outside the speakers when I placed my speakers on the long wall giving me side walls that were 9 feet away from the speakers.

Yes you are right. The further the speaker is from the wall the further it will image but it is the wall that creates that image. As you move that speaker in the soundstage widens in direct relationship of the distance betwen the wall and speaker. Room treatment just makes the sound wave react in a way that "tricks" the sound in working as if it was in a bigger or better room. If the speaker is two feet from the wall the image will be two feet beyond the wall. If the speaker is five feet from the wall then the image will be five feet beyond the wall. This is of course broken down to simple terms and there are numorous factors to also consider for overall soundstaging.

no, perfect image, i beg to differ - speakers would image *best*, if there's *no* sidewall - i.e.: if they were outside.

in my current set-up, my monitors are ~9' from the side-walls, & there is *no way* that i have imagining 9' beyond the outside walls! w/my ~25' wall, that would make the image ~43' wide!?! kinda rediculous, imho.

*sometimes*, on *some* recordings, i get images that make for a soundstage ~18'-20' wide. this is about the best i'm gonna get (or even want, for that matter). if i were to put my current set-up into a narrower room, extensive sound absorption would be necessary on the side walls to get similar soundstage width. very few (if any) speakers will image even outside their own cabinets, let alone outside the side walls, if placed w/in 2'-3' of an untreated side-wall.

I was trying to break things down to simple terms. You are right that there is a limit. The further from the wall the speaker gets the less defined the image gets. It will only project so far. If it wasnt the walls you wouldnt get a bigger soundstage in a bigger room with the same system. That is also why room treatment goes on the walls because it needs to be at the reflection point.

If you were to put your system in a feild it would sound completely different. I have never done this but I have always wanted to. I also think that, set up right, any speaker will image beyond the wall and I have been able to accomplish this with every pair of speakers I have owned including some real cheapies.

Of all the varibles of high end audio acoustics is one of the most important. Ask anyone with a didicated listening room what they think. Rooms, walls and ceiling, are layed out in a way to articulate sound and dissapate excess. This is all based on where the walls and ceilings are relative to where the speakers are. The reflection points.