Image Height/Vertical Placement?

[Rexp]

When I started this thread I was using my home-built solid wood tower speakers. Since then, I've switched to Von Schweikert Endeavor SEs. While overall tonality and driver integration have improved, I can't say that I've noted significant improvement in the vertical locating of sound sources in the overall soundstage.
When I attended AXPONA this year I paid special attention to this issue. I spent a substantial amount of time listening to the Magico M9/D'Agostino/Wadax system, seated in just about every position, and I did not note much vertical differentiation in that case. I did the same in the Estelon/Vitus room (my favorite system of the show), and also found vertical separation underwhelming. I recognize that show conditions are never ideal, but I thought that AXPONA's exhibitors generally did an outstanding job this year and I was quite impressed otherwise.
As I noted in my initial post, "I can only think of a few situations in which I'd expect to notice the height of a music source "in real life," and most of those are when I would be sitting very close to an unamplified performer (a violinist or cellist in my living room, for example); in most other cases the venue of the performance seems to "take over" as the dominant factor in placing sounds." Given that premise, I'd describe the Magico and Estelon soundstages at AXPONA as "realistic" as opposed to "synthetic."
On the other hand, I suppose it's possible that there's something lacking in my ear/brain interface!

It's not your brain, not many hifi speakers are capable of revealing all the spatial information embedded in good recordings. Some brands with a pro background seem to do a better job, like ATC, try their SCM 20T model with a big class A amp.

 

[microstrip]

My speaker tweeter was well below my ears and I always felt like I was sitting in a balcony. Getting a stand under the speaker and lifting it so the tweeter was ear level raised the image height to what I felt was a correct level.

IMO soundstage height should not be determined just by the tweeter height - this suggests we are hearing the tweeter separate from the whole speaker.

The Quad ESL63 is another curious example. It is a real point like speaker with the tweeter equivalent placed 30 inches above floor when playing without stands. But even floor mounted they can create a soundstage with a very reasonable realistic height when properly amplified in favorable acoustic conditions.

Perhaps we should remember that with some line speakers the soundstage goes up if we tilt them with the top going towards us - we could say pointing down!

 

[microstrip]

soundstage height and depth was a musically important part of an early music choral pressing i posted about a few days ago. hearing groups and individual voices up and down and side to side brought it alive in my room.

large scale choral music has quite the potential to separate levels of success with this issue.

my room excels at sound staging; part of which is that my twin towers of my speaker system are 84" and 86" tall so easily relate all the cues fully. and lots of amplifier headroom to retain ease and authority along with deep bass extension. some systems can run out of gas trying for big music.

and massed vocals leave no place to hide as to whether there is realism and clarity. if choral music congeals or falls flat could be the recording, but could be other places too. maybe it was an accident that as my system improved, my taste for choral music increased. but maybe not. so this issue can open up more music to you as it makes it more real.

Although some people hate being analytical I think we must address the two points separately - soundstage height - what you are mainly addressing - and discrimination of the height of the illusionary sound sources in the soundstage. As far as I could see the last point is not consensual - some people claim they can't perceive such "differential height", others say they we can in same systems with same recordings.

I have never been able to discriminate singers by height in a choral recording, probably because I do not anticipate a tenor singer to be tall and thin and a baritone to be a short, fat man! But for example, my favorite Savall recordings can show it.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Although some people hate being analytical I think we must address the two points separately - soundstage height - what you are mainly addressing - and discrimination of the height of the illusionary sound sources in the soundstage. As far as I could see the last point is not consensual - some people claim they can't perceive such "differential height", others say they we can in same systems with same recordings.

I have never been able to discriminate singers by height in a choral recording, probably because I do not anticipate a tenor singer to be tall and thin and a baritone to be a short, fat man! But for example, my favorite Savall recordings can show it.

i can't say i often get (or notice) height cues in recordings. although maybe on large scale works more often there is a greater sense of stage size; width depth and height. probably typically i do when it is musically significant. some recordings have a larger stage than others including height. so sometimes it is there to be heard. they should all be a bit different. which is the whole issue. to hear what can be heard from the recording, not some sameness artifact of your system good or bad. i linked one such recording. as far as choral recordings and height, sometimes it's there, and i appreciate it. whether from the mic placement or actual height differences who can say, unless you have a picture or diagram or were there. we mostly never know for sure.

and there are also stereo recordings with phase tricks putting information beyond 90 degrees off center or even above or behind you. just how precise is your system and sources? some of those recordings are very memorable (see the Classic Records LZ 45rpm box set single sided pressing of 'Whole Lotta Love' ) and visitors sometimes ask for a few as my system is special doing that stuff.

the proof is just that it's always to some degree unique. as is each recording.

i do find that better overall sound staging correlates to overall better sound.....whether one is a sound stage fan or not. so sound staging is a worthy tool to tune a system to get all the musical truth possible. if it's not doing that, what else is it not doing? still room for low cost gains. these room efforts are mostly much cheaper than upgrading boxes or speakers.

i'm merely an observer and have no position about why or how it happens. but it does happen.