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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2019 13:16:12 GMT
When my Dynaudio Contours where powered by several different Naim amps the soundstage was very narrow
and stopped coming fro the left or the right and instead used to appear dead centre.
I thought that this was down to the speakers but now they are powered by a Nad amp the soundstage is much wider with the left and the right sounding further apart.
So my questions are,
What are other members experiences?
And if it is the amp why and how can they affect soundstage?
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Post by dsjr on Nov 30, 2019 13:29:19 GMT
Naim is not normal or certainly didn't used to be - over-wide central mono and reduced extreme left and right - it's almost ALL in the unshielded interconnect cables that they use(d) and I proved this years ago to myself when I adapted a 4 pin SNAIC for use with another pre-power - made a LK1/Quad 405-2 sound and 'present' the music just like a CB era Naim lateral image-wise and with similar slightly glassy tones as well! Soundstage *should* purely be in the recording/mixing and shouldn't be further messed up in the room and/or speakers. Proper amps should channel-match with no issues and even integrated ones should have excellent stereo separation these days. Mind you, I believe psychologically, 'we' listeners like a little bleed-through at very high frequencies (as many pickup cartridges do) and there used to be a box (Francinstein?) that did just this as an add-on and many subjective reviewers liked what it did I seem to remember. The first article below if you scroll down a bit, fully explains what I was trying to convey in a couple of sentences.
Following thoughts are just mine... Reproduction of reverb, 'air' and 'space' in a perceived soundfield is a different matter to me though and some amps do seem hobbled slightly to emphasise unnaturally these things, either by ringing (some valve products), adding lots of low bass distortion coupled with a speaker-altering high output impedance (almost all transformer coupled valve amps bar one or two rare ones it seems) and more likely, compression of various sorts caused by various means such as power supply sag (the Naim Nait mk1 did this to perfection and the smaller NVA amps too when compared with slightly larger ones in comparison with volume set the same). Going from one of these to an amp that doesn't feck with these things by adding artifice can be a bit of a shock at first, but it's usually all there, just 'better' spaced out in the dynamics. Just my experience and ymmv of course. Maybe one reason the BOSC and Neurochrome might sound a little 'dry' at first as my beloved old Crowns do, but extended listening should show that different recordings sound more 'different' than they do through an amp-speaker that compresses and 'enhances' slightly.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2019 14:15:59 GMT
I agree with Dave that the SNAIC is responsible for a lot of the Naim soundstage being centre focused. I should add that if you separate out the power and signal carried by a Snaic, it opens things up, but the amps sound “worse” to me in many cases. I guess they are just so tailored that they can’t benefit from what would otherwise be an improvement.
naim power amps with a different preamp are pretty “normal” sounding. 110 is nice.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2019 15:58:15 GMT
Have no Idea never had the problem even sitting on top of my Wharfedale 10.1,s I get almost perfect left right and the vocals are dead center and that is on a Cambridge Sonata AR30.
on the other set ups I have never had an issue although I have heard some ultra expensive stuff in some rooms that nobody could get to image no matter what amp we used.
Had a set of Klipsch RB61's which I regret selling, they immaged like nothing else on anything anywhere.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2019 23:08:27 GMT
I used a few different interconnects with my Naim amps AR Sound Lunar, Chord Signature, Flashback, Teddy Pardo and Chord Chrysalis and the Naim amps always retained a very narrow soundstage.
Now with the same recordings and with the same speakers but with a different amp the sound stage is much more spread out.
I didn't dislike the narrow soundstage and can see how that narrow, in front image is so appealing but do much prefer the more spread out image that I get from my Nad.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2019 0:59:04 GMT
Are we taking about stereo separation here or soundstage ?
I don't class soundstage as separation.
Soundstage is a depth and height thing to me.
And it only comes in to play with a correctly positioned set of speakers , the intention in the studio to delay drums and push the front, and room acoustics and its ability to portray the millisecond difference in timing required to put the drums at the back and the singer at the front. . It's nothing to do with the quality of any components .
It's an image of depth and height which is rarely achieved. Stereo separation is a different thing altogether....to me . That's why you used to here people talk about soundstage 'depth' and the impossible to deliver mystical soundstage ' height' which only is ever discernable to probably bribed reviewers. .... because soundstage 'height ' doesn't and can't bloody exist on a stereo system!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2019 3:40:00 GMT
Are we taking about stereo separation here or soundstage ? I don't class soundstage as separation. Soundstage is a depth and height thing to me. And it only comes in to play with a correctly positioned set of speakers , the intention in the studio to delay drums and push the front, and room acoustics and its ability to portray the millisecond difference in timing required to put the drums at the back and the singer at the front. . It's nothing to do with the quality of any components . It's an image of depth and height which is rarely achieved. Stereo separation is a different thing altogether....to me . That's why you used to here people talk about soundstage 'depth' and the impossible to deliver mystical soundstage ' height' which only is ever discernable to probably bribed reviewers. .... because soundstage 'height ' doesn't and can't bloody exist on a stereo system! One can get an illusion of height, some instruments do sound like they are situated higher than others on a system that can actually manage to separate and thus place each instrument in its own space. |
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Post by antonio on Dec 1, 2019 6:23:05 GMT
Are we taking about stereo separation here or soundstage ? I don't class soundstage as separation. Soundstage is a depth and height thing to me. And it only comes in to play with a correctly positioned set of speakers , the intention in the studio to delay drums and push the front, and room acoustics and its ability to portray the millisecond difference in timing required to put the drums at the back and the singer at the front. . It's nothing to do with the quality of any components . It's an image of depth and height which is rarely achieved. Stereo separation is a different thing altogether....to me . That's why you used to here people talk about soundstage 'depth' and the impossible to deliver mystical soundstage ' height' which only is ever discernable to probably bribed reviewers. .... because soundstage 'height ' doesn't and can't bloody exist on a stereo system! You were going really well there until you say you can't get soundstage height. The worst speaker I heard for this was the Focal Grand Utopia which made a guitar sound like it was 9' tall when I heard them at the Munich HiFi show many years ago. |
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Post by sq225917 on Dec 1, 2019 13:56:20 GMT
Different instruments will present at different height according to the frequency they operate at and driver spacing. Soundstage width is down to channel separation, baffle step and first reflections.
An amp or cabling system would have to be massively f-ed up to affect stage width. Playing with a cross feed headphone filter via speakers gives an idea of how much.
I've owned naim gear and never found it to offer great stage width, though it manages separation perfectly well.
I wonder if theres another issue at play? Different phase distortion per channel?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2019 0:54:45 GMT
I don't have a problem with either amps presentation and enjoyed them both. I'm just intereted in the engineering and how one amp can have a very narrow presentation and the other quite wide.
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Post by dsjr on Dec 2, 2019 9:54:25 GMT
Naim have had ample chance to 'improve' their products and internally, I feel they've moved leaps and bounds from the tractor-like build of the 80's and 90's stuff. They have a huge almost cult following though, so the evolution of their amps has to be in ever more expensive baby steps. their streaming stuff is 'all-in-one-box,' so I suspect they're perhaps different in presentation to the pile-of-boxes-in-a-Fraim approach of yesteryear. there's certainly greater 'clarity' of sound in current models
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2019 14:10:37 GMT
When my Dynaudio Contours where powered by several different Naim amps the soundstage was very narrow and stopped coming fro the left or the right and instead used to appear dead centre. I thought that this was down to the speakers but now they are powered by a Nad amp the soundstage is much wider with the left and the right sounding further apart. So my questions are, What are other members experiences? And if it is the amp why and how can they affect soundstage? Typical (old) Naim amp sound. Pretty much any amp will soundstage better. When I used a Pioneer A400X with a Gyrodec it provided a very wide soundstage which I put down to the source mainly. Actually to some degree it was unnaturally wide. Swapping out for another Integrated (Rotel) the soundstage became narrower. The ultra wide soundstage didn't return with Albarry Monoblocks. With the MF 6500 it seems wider again but not to the degree of the Pioneer though much better in most other areas. They were all used for some time at least with same Mission Speakers. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2019 14:36:36 GMT
Perceived image width is a product of transparency and ambience. It can't be added to the media being listened to, but it can certainly be taken away from the sound you should be hearing.
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Post by pauld on Dec 4, 2019 18:43:01 GMT
Naim are rebound for having limited sound stages. I thought Exposure were better until I got my current Belles amp and found out what I’d been missing.
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Post by sq225917 on Dec 5, 2019 8:41:46 GMT
Perceived image width is a product of transparency and ambience. It can't be added to the media being listened to, but it can certainly be taken away from the sound you should be hearing. You certainly can add image width, it's done in the studio all the time. Theres even Logic filters specifically for that task. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2019 10:06:57 GMT
Perceived image width is a product of transparency and ambience. It can't be added to the media being listened to, but it can certainly be taken away from the sound you should be hearing. You certainly can add image width, it's done in the studio all the time. Theres even Logic filters specifically for that task. Well I did say "the media being listened to", not many of us have a studio. You can't alter what already on a CD for instance. |
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