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Is soundstage real or engineer?

Posted by glt (A) on November 11, 2004 at 10:22:36

I've been reading these boards for a long while and when a tweak improves soundstage (wider, deeper, etc) I wonder if it really matters because the soundstage that one hears through the speakers may very well be created by the recording engineer. I'm no music engineering expert, but I think during the recording session, every instrument is played very close and in front of one or more mics. The the mixing engineer takes the tracks and creates a stereo master (or a 5.1 master). I'm no acoustic expert but basically we hear spacial information because our ears are apart and sound takes a bit longer to reach the other ear, so if sound comes from the left speaker, it takes a bit more time to reach the right ear and our brains can tell that the sound is coming from the left. So "stereo" is achieved by mixing info into the left and right channels.

I've listened to pop cds that have a much wider soundstage than audiophile jazz cds. I've also listened to some CDs where the recording was done live with just two mics (I think Chesky has some of those recordings). In these recordings the sound just sounds "distant" without that "intimacy" you get when the mic is placed in front of the instrument...

Thanks in advace for any comments...

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