An unusual take. I've never read anything but praise for the Wiim DAC's. The general consensus these days seems to be that speakers and room are key.
Pro plus with power amp
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Thank you. I cleaned and restored the moulding many years ago.Beautiful living room. That crown molding is something
hgo58
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For the speakers this is true. For the rest of the signal chain it is not possible and really don't matter. Any filtering or EQ will change the phase. That how it works.
Our ears are not sensitive to phase, only to frequency and amplitude.
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slartibartfast
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Have you never heard QSound? Reversing the phase of one speaker is also easily audible, it's how the "wide" setting on an old boombox works.
hgo58
Senior Member
In that case you work with the airwaves making them cancel or amplifying each other in the room. And as said, it does matter for multiple speakers.
This is however about difference in phase between different channels, not the phase of a single signal.
azoriusmage
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I use the Wiim Amp in my office with a pair of Kef Q150 and I am very happy with the soundstage so I don't think the Amp is definitely your problem. The listening position in your room is not far away and I have similar in my living room (not with Wiim Amp but a pro and a Marantz amp) and I have mine out wider and toed in. I think the suggestion of a sub is good one it doesn't have to be booming out and over the top to make a real difference.
slartibartfast
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Are you saying that altering the phase between stereo speakers is inaudible?
I do actually have a sub. It has benefits but does not affect soundstage in this instance.
hgo58
Senior Member
No. Just the opposite.
But you don't need phase preservation though out the audio "pipeline". Just preservation of the phase between the channels and that is normally the case even with low quality equipment.
I appreciate the reality check!I don't even want to discuss this.
From my point of view it is totally irresponsible to talk someone with non-ideal speaker placement in a difficult room into trying and buying multiple amps if he isn't satisfied with the soundstage. This won't work. If anything, while changing components over and over again, some random and totally unrelated change might lead to a subjective improvement, which might be wrongly attributed to the amplifier then.
slartibartfast
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So when you said we weren't sensitive to phase did you mean that the phase didn't matter as long as it was the same in both channels?
azoriusmage
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Given his setup it should not be hard to make sure phase is correct and worth making sure.
This could actually be quite important, or at least another variable.
Like most things in audio, sound stage is more tricky a topic than one might think. As long as we are just talking left/right localisation things are fairly straight. There are mainly (but not exclusively) two mechanisms involved, interaural level difference (most relevant above 1 kHz) and interaural time difference (most relevant below 1 kHz).
When we audiophiles talk about "sound stage" we don't just think left/centre/right, though. We are sure that we can hear the depth of the sound stage in various layers, with instruments in front of and behind the speakers. We even are convinced that only with the right DAC/Amp/cable riser/speaker placement the height of the sound stage will just fall in place with good recordings. And of course, this isn't entirely wrong.
It's just that for sound directly in front of us or behind us, above us or below us (should that happen) and everywhere in between always has the same level and zero time difference in the left and right channel. How can we hear a difference in sound stage height if both speakers are playing exactly the same signal? Stereo is of no help here! Same for the depth of the sound stage. If one instruments sounds further away from you than the other but both are directly in front of you, this has nothing to do with stereo at all.
So, what's happening then? Our hearing is evaluating additional clues. Most prominently, the shape of our auricles and the shape of our head come into play. Our hearing does in fact have a different "frequency response" (or more formally: transfer function) for sound coming from different directions. This is most important for front/back and above/below localisation of sound events, but it also plays a (somewhat subordinate) role for left/right localisation (think: sound stage extension ...).
For spacial hearing our brain tries to gather as many clues as possible, filter out conflicting information and create the most likely hearing experience for us. This is not trouble free. The more contradicting the different clues are, the more exhausting the listening experience can be. Regarding the depth of the sound stage, clues are even more vague. Sound sources further away from us are usually lower in level and higher frequencies are tamed more than lower frequencies. The next time you are in a real concert hall, close your eyes and try to find out how good our hearing really is at telling the distance to a sound source. Spoiler: Not very good at all ...
What all these additional mechanisms have in common is that they all rely on things that we had to learn! It's not pure acoustics leading the way. If you never heard a trumpet in your whole life, how would you know how different it sounds played in front of you or behind you? Of course, we are learning from experience and can extrapolate from all the sound events we have heard before. There are other even more obscure things our brain does to help us perceive an unambiguous illusion of sound around us. It's also a matter of concentration. I even heard that newer studies found a new additional influence on the so called cocktail party effect (in a group of many speakers we can filter out everything but the one we want to listen to). It appears that our brains even takes into account the direction we are looking. And I have left out may other factors like the influence of reverb or echos.
Why this long story, then?
Localisation of sound events is not just about phase and level. It's not even just about stereo. Many things come into play, it's a real mess. Even slight variations in certain frequency ranges can change our perception of spacial hearing, masking effects can have a positive or negative influence. Often we just need to take away few factors irritating our brains like certain characteristics of the listening room (while taking away reflections completely is not a good idea). Room correction and subwoofers can be really helpful here, but nobody said this is easy. You didn't like the outcome of your previous RC run, but there are lots of things you could change and try again (target curve, frequency range, max. gain and max. Q for correction). The most pleasing crossover frequency, delay and level for your subwoofer (to be detirminded before running RC) can all have an influence. An influence that is much, much more important than the difference between any two decent amplifiers.
Remember, it's all just really an illusion (which is not a bad thing).
Edit, for reference and further reading:
Sound localization - Wikipedia
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That's what I do, pointing into the right direction.
BK308
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By pragmatic you mean spend more money on amps?
I never said that, and I never meant to say it!
If it would be like this, I would probably not be on the WiiM environment.
I meant comparing results. This can be an Amp, this can be the position of the Loudspeakers, this can be optimizing q factors on RC.
But I would never rule out full-bodied that an important part as the Amp has no impact on the overall result.
I know it has.
Nothing wrong with comparing results.
But two guys on the Internet stating how much their soundstage improved after replacing different amplifiers A and B with the same amp C really says absolutely nothing. Same goes for twenty guys.
There are just so many other variables involved that can have an influence on sound stage (in theory), it plain doesn't make sense discussing stuff that can not have an influence (in theory).
But two guys on the Internet stating how much their soundstage improved after replacing different amplifiers A and B with the same amp C really says absolutely nothing. Same goes for twenty guys.
There are just so many other variables involved that can have an influence on sound stage (in theory), it plain doesn't make sense discussing stuff that can not have an influence (in theory).
ArthurStereo
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Yes. I have a Wiim Pro Plus connected to an Eversolo AMP-F2 power amplifier. It sounds great. I've already written about this.
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