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Originally posted by r3cc0s
What is true soundstage?
If it is the placement of the instruments, which of course was mastered by the recording, |
Yes, soundstage is the placing and location of instruments, vocals, and sounds which you hear reproduced by either speakers of headphones. It's like sitting in front of an orchestra where you can see and pick out instruments coming from different locations. With headphones these audio clues can also appear to come from in front of your eyes or behind your head. Some times it kinda trippy to hear sounds coming from behind you with good headphones, but it's kinda cool!
As to "TRUE" soundstage as you put it, who knows?? Unless you were at the actual recording and could measure the distance from mic to instrument in each case there is probably no definitive answer to that question. Remixing and remastering can affect each of these components, dependent on the engineer's whims and ideas of what he wants to do with the sound. (See last paragraph for more!) I am not an expert here, just giving what little I know and have heard.
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| and that headphones distort the imaging because it was meant to be played on speakers... |
Imaging with headphones can atually be quite good when compared to speakers. Audio recordings are meant to be played back on a stereo set of sound reproducers, not necessarily just speakers. Sometimes the mixing and stuff is actually done with headphones on the engineer's head, so you might say they were meant to be played on headphones as that is how they were mixed/engineered. This way they can be isolated from outside noise, control the exact imaging for left/right balance and such, and anything else a headphone can do better than speakers.
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| which cans have the most close to natural soundstage? |
Sony R10s for dynamics, Sennheiser Orpheus for electrostatics. But then again, they cost about $4000 and $11000 respectively!!
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| Does using the crossfeed help? I think so with head room equipment... |
Crossfeed helps diffuse the "blobs" you can get with headphones. It samples a little of the left or right channel and crossfeeds it to the opposite channel. Some headphones create that big blob centered in your head where the music "appears" to come out of as the sound levels, when equal in both ears, seem to come from.
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Anyways I was contemplating this as I was listening to my grado rs-2's with flat pads... hey it does a pretty good job, it seems to be as spaceous and imaged pretty darn close to my Monitor Audio speakers, (using a TA with crossfeed on) with the rs-2's.
However when I used my 580's I noticed that the soundstaging seems more airy, and more separate, it doesn't appear that it is the way it is supposed to be, maybe even a bit exaggerated
am I right? or am I just on crack |
You may still be on crack, but accurately describing what you hear!!!
It's hard to tell just how big of a soundstage you're SUPPOSED to hear in a recording. In the opinion of many people here, myself included, there is no such thing as TOO BIG of a soundstage. The more air a given set of headphones has, the more separation between singers, instruments, and the like the better. Some headphones are better than others at reproducing this effect, you'll just have to decide for yourself how much of that particular effect seems "natural" to your ears!!
Hope this helps more than confuse!!!
