How to get depth in a stereo setup?

[arj]

In a soundstage the speakers are supposed to disappear and hence simpler not to correlate the soundstage to speaker position since this depends a lot on many factors eg forward sounding systems will bring the image in front .

Whats important is the instrument and vocal position relative to each other. ignore their relativity to the speaker.

Speakers too wide can also diffuse the soundstage and hence you lose the depth. move the speakers closer together such that the distance between their center is 1/3rd the room width and try ?

Yes glass behind the speakers will distort the image if the speaker is close enough to it and any cloth over it can help. my guess is if you move the cadence speakers closer you should get a depth since they image quite well.

 

[Bloom@83]

Played this multiple times on two different speakers at two different locations and two different amps. This is my experience
1. The vocals are very prominent and very focussed.
2. The sound of the trumpet extents beyond the right speaker. A good 3-4 feet beyond the right speaker.
3. Behind or front, this is where it gets fuzzy for me. If I imagine the speakers are behind the singer, I'm able to imagine the trumpet are behind the singer. If I imagine trumpet is playing on the right but in front of the singer, I feel that the trumpet is playing in front of the singer.

Could it be reflections playing havoc?
EDIT: I have this TV with solid glass as the front panel. Could it be this causing the issue
View attachment 67052

Assuming you are testing with the front pair of speakers ?
Turn off all lights and see.The trumpet should appear to come from near the door on the right …
Nice looking gear by the way , although I don’t see any of the three turntables

 

[mbhangui]

Nice looking gear by the way , although I don’t see any of the three turntables

One turntable (Technics SL-Q3 ) is just below the Center speaker below the TV. One (ancient Akai AP002) is behind the tv. One turntable is in my bedroom . I keep them covered with cloth to prevent dust entering.

Assuming you are testing with the front pair of speakers ?

Tested with both set of speakers (the tall one Polk Rti A9 powered by Yamaha AVR) and the pair pulled out into the room are the cadence arista electrostats powered by a valve amp at the moment.

Turn off all lights and see.The trumpet should appear to come from near the door on the right …

Will try it. Someone suggested me to put a thick towel over the TV and try it out. So that is what I will try now. Cover it with a blanket and see.

 

[mbhangui]

Speakers too wide can also diffuse the soundstage and hence you lose the depth. move the speakers closer together such that the distance between their center is 1/3rd the room width and try ?

Yes glass behind the speakers will distort the image if the speaker is close enough to it and any cloth over it can help. my guess is if you move the cadence speakers closer you should get a depth since they image quite well.

Keeping the speakers close to each other is one thing I have not tried yet. So few things on my plate.
1. Cover the tv with cloth, blanket, something thick
2. Move the speaker closer. I will have to lift the carpet and pull out the cables to do it. So will do this tomorrow.
3. The cadence speakers do image well. They disappear when I play music. Also the sweet spot appears over a large angle and not just the center.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

Hi @mbhangui

The absence of depth, is an acoustic issue and not beacuse of the kit.

The horizontal line joining the 2 tweeters to the rear wall is the zone where depth resides. ( keeping this zone symmetrical, without obstructions, and without reflections aids with depth. Most often we treat rooms, starting with plane of the speakers to the listeners back wall, giving us imaging. The neglected part from the speakers to the wall behind the speakers causes depth damage )

1. Having speakers close to the rear wall, will result in early reflections off the rear wall, which will harm both depth and imaging.
2. Having kit present between the speakers ( like me ), which extends above the mid range driver will harm depth.
3. If the front wall can be treated to handle these front wall reflections, then the perception of depth will go beyond the wall itself.
4. For 90% of the speakers, sitting at the same distance or slightly closer from the speakers, as speaker to speaker distance will help depth. Getting speakers closer, will narrow the sound stage and make it too busy in a localised space to make out depth. Ex : take two pipes of infinite length, we can see deeper and farther into the wider pipe. Both our ears and eyes are offset from the center and function similarly.
5. Go too wide with speaker placement from what was mentioned in point no.4, and we again loose depth, as the sound energy is too diffuse.

All the best

 

[mbhangui]

Hi @mbhangui

The absence of depth, is an acoustic issue and not beacuse of the kit.

The horizontal line joining the 2 tweeters to the rear wall is the zone where depth resides. ( keeping this zone symmetrical, without obstructions, and without reflections aids with depth. Most often we treat rooms, starting with plane of the speakers to the listeners back wall, giving us imaging. The neglected part from the speakers to the wall behind the speakers causes depth damage )

1. Having speakers close to the rear wall, will result in early reflections off the rear wall, which will harm both depth and imaging.
2. Having kit present between the speakers ( like me ), which extends above the mid range driver will harm depth.

I have another problem in addition to a tv on the wall behind the speakers. The room is L shaped. Half of the wall behind the speakers actuall extends further back into the room by a good 6-8 ft. Part of this recess has been converted into large cupboards to hold my vinyl records, cds with the doors covered with sound absorbent material. while the other half of the wall (behind the tv) has been left untreated. The roof tiles are armstrong acoustic tiles. The left and right wall have sound absorbent panels. This room was done by my interior guy totally unsupervised. The result was a disaster. The bass traps are so puny that I don't know what to call them. I have paid the price for being busy when the room was being done in 2012. Now that I have the time, this covid thing is preventing me to get the room reworked. I don't see a solution unless I change my house or temporarily move to another house on rent. Currently the area behind the speakers is totally asymmetrical.

However the area in front of the speakers is symmetrical. There is a large set of sliding glass doors and the glass doors is totally covered with sound absorbers. So another thing I can do is to have one pair of speakers on the opposite side for music only (2nd picture below). That's the last option I will try.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

I have another problem in addition to a tv on the wall behind the speakers. The room is L shaped. Half of the wall behind the speakers actuall extends further back into the room by a good 6-8 ft. Part of this recess has been converted into large cupboards to hold my vinyl records, cds with the doors covered with sound absorbent material. while the other half of the wall (behind the tv) has been left untreated. The roof tiles are armstrong acoustic tiles. The left and right wall have sound absorbent panels. This room was done by my interior guy totally unsupervised. The result was a disaster. The bass traps are so puny that I don't know what to call them. I have paid the price for being busy when the room was being done in 2012. Now that I have the time, this covid thing is preventing me to get the room reworked. I don't see a solution unless I change my house or temporarily move to another house on rent. Currently the area behind the speakers is totally asymmetrical.

However the area in front of the speakers is symmetrical. There is a large set of sliding glass doors and the glass doors is totally covered with sound absorbers. So another thing I can do is to have one pair of speakers on the opposite side for music only (2nd picture below). That's the last option I will try.
View attachment 67054


View attachment 67055

The asymmetry behind the left speaker is not a issue. I have the exact same room here

The only difference is that the door you have to the left in the front. I have it in the back left

My room size is 11.5 x 15 ft only. And I also get a good perception of depth when I place my absorbent panels on the front wall. The main difference is that my tweeters are atleast 1.4 mtrs from the front wall. And no toe-in. Toeing them in was reducing depth and imaging due to back wall reflections. Besides, there was slight image shift of the vocals to the left. ( due you have this issue by any chance.)

I can see that the speakers can't be pulled into the room further, due to the door. Turning them around, as shown in the second pic will give the benefit of providing more room to the speakers in the back. However, you won't be able to treat the back wall heavily in that case.

In small rooms, the back wall iis of paramount importance. And same needs to be heavily treated till the seating space is completely dead. Once that is done, if a near field setup can be done. Then side walls won't matter at all.

Keeping the above in mind, I would suggest to move the speakers 90 degrees to the right. So that the French window is on the right. This will give you a continuous wall behind your seating position that can be heavily damped.

If you can please share your room dimensions, I might be able to imagine better

P.S : I will post a link below to my posts on a similar thread.

Need help with acoustic treatment ideas for my room

I'm starting the interior work of my place and wanted some suggestions on acoustic treatment (walls and ceiling) for 2-channel that MUST blend with the aesthetics. Room is 16x22x9.5. It's L shaped with one side living room. Listening will be 12-15' ft from the front wall with speakers about 3-4'...

www.hifivision.com

 

[arj]

Keeping the speakers close to each other is one thing I have not tried yet. So few things on my plate.
1. Cover the tv with cloth, blanket, something thick
2. Move the speaker closer. I will have to lift the carpet and pull out the cables to do it. So will do this tomorrow.
3. The cadence speakers do image well. They disappear when I play music. Also the sweet spot appears over a large angle and not just the center.

point 1 is only if using the Polk speaker..its too far behind the cadence to worry about
point 2 is of course for the cadence and if it has spikes, placing it Over the carpet might just be better.

Dont worry too much about the L shaped room ..while that does impact the bass response and hence the tone, It should not affect the 3D imaging much although that shape of the soundstage can be different but again that is significant only in large scale orchestral pieces.

 

[mbhangui]

The asymmetry behind the left speaker is not a issue. I have the exact same room here

The only difference is that the door you have to the left in the front. I have it in the back left

My room size is 11.5 x 15 ft only. And I also get a good perception of depth when I place my absorbent panels on the front wall. The main difference is that my tweeters are atleast 1.4 mtrs from the front wall. And no toe-in. Toeing them in was reducing depth and imaging due to back wall reflections. Besides, there was slight image shift of the vocals to the left. ( due you have this issue by any chance.)

I can see that the speakers can't be pulled into the room further, due to the door. Turning them around, as shown in the second pic will give the benefit of providing more room to the speakers in the back. However, you won't be able to treat the back wall heavily in that case.

In small rooms, the back wall iis of paramount importance. And same needs to be heavily treated till the seating space is completely dead. Once that is done, if a near field setup can be done. Then side walls won't matter at all.

Keeping the above in mind, I would suggest to move the speakers 90 degrees to the right. So that the French window is on the right. This will give you a continuous wall behind your seating position that can be heavily damped.

If you can please share your room dimensions, I might be able to imagine better

Here are the dimensions

point 1 is only if using the Polk speaker..its too far behind the cadence to worry about
point 2 is of course for the cadence and if it has spikes, placing it Over the carpet might just be better.

Dont worry too much about the L shaped room ..while that does impact the bass response and hence the tone, It should not affect the 3D imaging much although that shape of the soundstage can be different but again that is significant only in large scale orchestral pieces.

Ok. That makes it a bit easier. I don't use the polks for music. So it is only the cadence that I need to worry and fix the placement.

 

[jls001]

One of the more important properties of sound is that its speed is nearly independent of frequency. If this were not the case, and high-frequency sounds traveled faster, for example, then the farther you were from a band in a football stadium, the more the sound from the low-pitch instruments would lag behind the high-pitch ones. But the music from all instruments arrives in cadence independent of distance, and so all frequencies must travel at nearly the same speed.

14.1 Speed of Sound, Frequency, and Wavelength - Physics | OpenStax

Sound is a wave. More specifically, sound is defined to be a disturbance of matter that is transmitted from its source outward. A disturbance is anythin...

openstax.org

See this question by @Analogous in the link https://www.hifivision.com/threads/hard-facts-from-a-hug-member.87931/post-988437 where he says


Which is true for me. With effort in speaker placement, sound treatment, I have managed to get the center imaging, separating out artists, individual instruments, etc. But never the height and the depth. For height it can be logically explained because as long as you are recording with two microphones and the playback with two speakers only, you cannot get height because two speakers can give you left + right image. Just like you can't get the feeling of left and right with Mono recording or with a single speaker, for height you have to have minimum of 4 speakers with the MLP suspeneded between all the 4 speakers (two speakers left and right and two speakers top and bottom).

Now there are many who say that they hear depth. Let's say we have a singer who is singing and a piano is playing in the background. In a concert hall (non-amplified playback), since the piano is behind the singer, the sound from the piano will arrive at your ears later compared to the vocals from the singer (remember that the speed does not depend on the frequency). So it easy for our ears to know and feel that the piano is behind the singer. Now you record the event with two microphones, convert that into vinyl, cd whatever and play from your stereo system. Now both vocals and piano will play from the same speaker. So the sound from the singer and the piano will arrive at your ears exactly at the same time. So isn't it impossible for the person to determine of the singer is in front of the piano or behind the piano?

So the question is - Is it really possible to get realistic depth and height from a stereo recording played with two speakers? If possible, can some show how it is possible as per physics? Any article which shows the science. There are plenty available for how left and right works for stereo, but none that show how height and depth are possible with stereo.

NOTE: Even with headphones, the sound always appears to come from in between the head and never in front or behind. Even If i try to imagine depth, it sounds artificial and elusive.

"So the sound from the singer and the piano will arrive at your ears exactly at the same time. "

Yes, the sound of the singer and the piano played from the speakers will arrive at the same time to the listener's ears. What imparts the illusion of depth (yes, it's an illusion) is the relative loudness of the two sounds, namely, the voice and the piano. If the piano is recorded at a slightly lower level than the voice the sound of the piano will seem behind the voice. Further, if the amplitude of both the sounds are equal between left and right channel, both piano and voice will play at the phantom center of the stereo sound field, right in the middle of the two speakers. An extension of the same mixing technique is to make the amplitude of the instrument higher on, say, left channel than the right, so that during playback the listener will feel that the voice is centred but the piano is offset to the left. This would be appropriate if the piano was off centred and towards the left in the actual performance. An extreme example is the sound of high pitched percussion like a triangle traveling from left to right (called panning). This is achieved by making the amplitude of that particular percussion full on left channel and zero on right channel, then gradually decreasing the amplitude of the left while increasing the amplitude of the right by an equal amount till left becomes zero and right is full. The studio engineer can play around with the time duration to give the effect of a quick left to right pan, or a slow one.

"So the question is - Is it really possible to get realistic depth and height from a stereo recording played with two speakers? "

I think you need to tamper your expectation about height. If you want to hear a helicopter whirring overhead, then you'll probably need Dolby Atmos height speakers like in a theatre or HT, and not regular pair of stereo speakers. But a stereo recording recorded using a Blumlein pair of mics will capture a lot of the venue ambience including what height the voices and instruments are playing at. A good example is A Meeting By The River from Water Lily Acoustics. The liner inserts of that CD has a picture of the artists seated on a platform about a foot in height. So correctly set up speakers will play the various instruments at a height of about 2 feet from the floor.

Regarding the audibility/inaudibility on headphones, in ear monitors and earbuds, well, open-backed over ear (circumaural) headphones are usually better at portraying the illusion of sound stage width. Closed back earphones usually don't do width as well as open backed.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

Apart from volume, reverb also gives depth cues in a mix.

 

[Kannan]

One simple solution is to sit down on the floor with a glass of amrit in hand . Everything then gets high

 

[arj]

From my understanding the position is evaluated by the ear across all 3 planes for a point source.

1. horizontal location by the difference in time between the same signal perception in the left and right ear
2. vertical location by means of the angle of entry of the sound to the ear..the shape of the ear contributes to measuring this.
3. depth by the variation between reflected and direct sound of the same signal

Since 3 is based so much in reflected sound as well the positioning and room has a lot of play..more than 1 and 2. height is the most complex to get right but if you get 1 and 3 right you can get a great experience.

In a stereo recording an apparent image is formed by manipulating the left and right signals to fool the brain eg during mixing that delays and variation between left and right can be added to enhance this experience.

 

[Enkay78]

One simple solution is to sit down on the floor with a glass of amrit in hand . Everything then gets high

This is actually the panacea of all the woes in the world

 

[mbhangui]

So I moved the cadence speaker closer. To calibrate, I temporarily connected it to my yamaha avr, connected the YPAO microphone and discovered that the right speaker goes out of phase at a particular distance from the right wall. If I pull the speaker just by few inches more away from the right wall, the 'out-of-phase' error goes away. Tested this n number of times. Tested the same with the polk speakers too. The moment it goes closer to the right wall, the speaker goes out-of-phase as per YPAO measurements.

Will be doing listening tests later tonight with single malt as others have suggested.

Question: Can reflections cause speakers to go out of phase?

"So the sound from the singer and the piano will arrive at your ears exactly at the same time. "

Yes, the sound of the singer and the piano played from the speakers will arrive at the same time to the listener's ears. What imparts the illusion of depth (yes, it's an illusion) is the relative loudness of the two sounds, namely, the voice and the piano. If the piano is recorded at a slightly lower level than the voice the sound of the piano will seem behind the voice. Further, if the amplitude of both the sounds are equal between left and right channel, both piano and voice will play at the phantom center of the stereo sound field, right in the middle of the two speakers.

I can hear the volume difference, but the volume difference is not translating into larger distance of the piano behind the singer.

I have made some placement changes today. Let me see if I do get the sense of depth tonight.

 

[jls001]

I can hear the volume difference, but the volume difference is not translating into larger distance of the piano behind the singer.

I have made some placement changes today. Let me see if I do get the sense of depth tonight.

Seeing the pic of your setup, I can see that you have a lot of space behind your Cadence. This is a good thing as the panels radiate to both the front and back, though they are of opposite phases. I used to own the Cadence ES many years ago driven by Audio Research pre and power, and kept about 3'6" spacing behind the ES. I'm not quite sure as I didn't experiment much with my ES, but I have a hunch: the rear wave reflected from the wall behind the speakers must ideally integrate in phase with the front wave (basic wave mechanics). This would mean that the speaker must be at a specific distance D (or integral multiples of D) from the wall behind it. Perhaps your speakers are too far away from the wall behind it? Also, the panels are too close to the side walls (at least it looks that way from the picture).

 

[mbhangui]

Seeing the pic of your setup, I can see that you have a lot of space behind your Cadence. This is a good thing as the panels radiate to both the front and back, though they are of opposite phases. I used to own the Cadence ES many years ago driven by Audio Research pre and power, and kept about 3'6" spacing behind the ES. I'm not quite sure as I didn't experiment much with my ES, but I have a hunch: the rear wave reflected from the wall behind the speakers must ideally integrate in phase with the front wave (basic wave mechanics). This would mean that the speaker must be at a specific distance D (or integral multiples of D) from the wall behind it. Perhaps your speakers are too far away from the wall behind it? Also, the panels are too close to the side walls (at least it looks that way from the picture).

The panels were 1 feet away from the side wall. Now I have moved it 2.2 feet away and the out-of-phase error has gone away. Will experiment moving the speakers 2.2ft and more than 2.2 ft tonight.

The out-of-phase error is happening with polk rtia9 too and only on the right side. The difference between the left and right side of the room is that the left side is longer and the right side is shorter because it has a bathroom. The bathroom is 3ft behind the tv

 

[arj]

Question: Can reflections cause speakers to go out of phase?

I dont believe sound waves change phase on reflections. The only logic might be some complex interference pattern across multiple frequencies perhaps.

If something it out of phase ,the imaging will all get messed up and you will hear music coming from inside your head so no need of the AVR..use your int Amp itself.

 

[mbhangui]

I pulled the speakers closer. Even covered the tv with a quilt. I did feel the clarity improved when I covered the tv with a rug. As an experiment turned both speakers 180 degrees and interchanged the left and right channel. And I finally get something unbelievable. The depth is there and the sound stage is ethereal. Played the track good, bad ugly and the track "If I cound sing your blues" link posted by @arj

Now I have to grapple with certain circumstances.

1. To listen to music I have to sit on the opposite side with the tv behind me. This means I have to get some light weight and yet comfortable chair and drag it just in front of the tv every time I want to listen to music and remove the chair for tv watching. Ugh!!!
2. It looks wierd having one pair of speaker on one side of the room and another pair of speakers on another side.

The only practical solution that seems feasible is to usurp the guest room and make it a music room. But that is on a floor below. So If I change my mind to watch a movie, I have to go upstairs and vice versa.

The other is to find out what is causing some kind of anomaly where the entire sound stage is on the plane where the TV is sitting. I suspect this is something that @jls001 says and which is logical. The ES panels radiate sound front and back and the room or something is posing a challenge for this kind of speaker.

 

[jls001]

I pulled the speakers closer. Even covered the tv with a quilt. I did feel the clarity improved when I covered the tv with a rug. As an experiment turned both speakers 180 degrees and interchanged the left and right channel. And I finally get something unbelievable. The depth is there and the sound stage is ethereal. Played the track good, bad ugly and the track "If I cound sing your blues" link posted by @arj

Now I have to grapple with certain circumstances.

1. To listen to music I have to sit on the opposite side with the tv behind me. This means I have to get some light weight and yet comfortable chair and drag it just in front of the tv every time I want to listen to music and remove the chair for tv watching. Ugh!!!
2. It looks wierd having one pair of speaker on one side of the room and another pair of speakers on another side.

The only practical solution that seems feasible is to usurp the guest room and make it a music room. But that is on a floor below. So If I change my mind to watch a movie, I have to go upstairs and vice versa.

The other is to find out what is causing some kind of anomaly where the entire sound stage is on the plane where the TV is sitting. I suspect this is something that @jls001 says and which is logical. The ES panels radiate sound front and back and the room or something is posing a challenge for this kind of speaker.

Congratulations on the red bold part

As to the circumstances, you'll find a way