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VII: Soundstaging: 6 Criteria: Soundstaging is what most audiophiles are interested in and they would not be satisfied until I indulged a cliché such as "instruments were spread out across the stage with their presence well defined and plenty of palpable air and space around each instrument." Of course I could say this and it would be true but just as with most paltry descriptions of musical dynamics, it also is the case that vocabulary is stunted when describing soundstaging. I shall try for a more thorough explanation of what soundstage is in musical reproduction, analyzing its several different qualities. First, a brief definition of terms: soundstage refers to reproduced music occupying or demarcating space in the listening room as it is perceived, interpreted and analyzed by the listener. The words image or imaging refer to the specifics of soundstage, comprise its parts and give selective perspectives by which to judge the overall soundstage. Thus, soundstage is the genus and imaging the several species.

Now I proceed to discuss soundstage by analyzing it from the perspective of six aspects of imaging, remarking on each as they relate to the SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1.


VII A: First, there is width of soundstage which means literally how far to the left and right the image hovers in space. In some instances this can be unnaturally wide although usually when this happens, there is a hole in the middle. More often the image's width is somewhat constricted. One has a sense of artificial boundary, with the music presented in a limited or circumscribed space. The listener feels somewhat disconcerted because he keeps listening beyond that boundary but hears either nothing or too little. Usually the choice is between a very wide soundstage with a hole (or several) in the middle; or a frustratingly narrow soundstage. I have found over the years that satisfactory width of soundstage is something most likely achieved with good speakers and indeed, the quality of width in my speakers' soundstage could almost be described as unparalleled. Using Dunlavy SC-IIIs, I have yet to hear a speaker that does as good a job with soundstage in any of its facets. Width (without holes in the middle) is especially notable. Did the upgraded DAC improve on the width of the soundstage? I was surprised that it did although I am not surprised that it did only a little, given that, truly, there wasn't much room for improvement.

VII B: Second, there is depth of soundstage as influenced by, or defined by, volume. This quality has already been analyzed as the second criterion by which to judge dynamics and that discussion need not be repeated here except to note that this quality of dynamics is an integral and important quality of soundstaging and defines a point at which dynamics and soundstaging cohere and even merge.


VII C: Third, there is depth of soundstage as defined by consistency and thereby predictability of spatial location. One is sitting X distance from the speakers and experiences the music not coming from a single imaginary line drawn from one speaker across to the other but rather, there is a three-dimensional aspect to this image. This is the part of soundstaging which usually is most challenging and quite often most frustrating. The image is there in its three dimensions but this image tends to move around when it shouldn't. I do not here refer to the movement, of forward or back, above analyzed in dynamics. Rather, I refer to more varied and unpredictable movements. This problem occurs when, although there is demarcated space between instruments or voices, that space is not well defined or it shifts in location, literally giving one particular spatial relationship between individual instruments at one listening, and then, at a later listening, a slightly different spatial relationship.


For example, a solo voice with solo acoustic guitar, at first listening, reveals the voice at about 18 inches above the guitar; a listening of only 10 minutes later has the voice maybe 24 inches above the guitar. My experience has been that this aspect of imaging is probably most governed by the quality of interconnects used, although all components play a part. And obviously the SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1 plays a role here because it was in this area (the most difficult aspect of soundstaging) that I noted the most marked improvement over the earlier incarnation of this DAC as an (original) McCormack DAC-1 Deluxe. The location of the image, with repeated playback, is so absolutely locked into position that you could almost measure where it is to the millimeter. It is in this area that the Linn Sondek CD 12 so clearly excelled. But with that player the image sounded precise because it could be measured to within a couple of inches. Now with the SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1, the image is so precise it can't really be measured. It's just there. You listen with someone else and you don't gesture vaguely. You point. This is even true with deep bass. Yes, those waveforms in the deep bass are wide but the instrument is situated in a clearly defined space. If a B-flat tuba registers a bottom note, one should be able to point to exactly where the bell of that instrument is. With this Ultra DAC, one can indeed point to that tuba's bell. No other CD player I have ever heard comes even close to giving this kind of repeatable precision in the location of deep bass.

VII D: Fourth, there is height, which in my experience is primarily determined by speaker cables and the quality of the tweeter. In this aspect of soundstaging, the image did not improve with the Ultra DAC-1. It already was quite satisfactory in my system and frankly, were it any higher it would seem unnatural. So I suppose in this case that the Ultra DAC-1 actually does excel because it doesn't mess with what was right already.


VII E: Fifth, there is a term which has only recently entered audio reviewers' language but which musicians such as myself have been using for years; namely, the holographic presentation of individual instruments in the soundstage. This refers to the air, the breathing room, the owned space of each individual instrument. This emanates from the precise location of the instrument of course but anyone who has ever played chamber music knows that it also is defined by how each instrument's sound reflects off the body of the person playing that instrument, and also how that instrument's sound reflects off the adjacent instruments and players. In other words, in that small cluster of musicians and instruments, there is point source sound, reflection of sound from the stage walls and the hall too, and also reflection from the adjacent instruments and players.


The result is that for musicians, positioning with respect to one another is critical both for hearing the sound in the same way the audience hears it, and also for hearing yourself and each other correctly. Recorded and reproduced, this part of the soundstage is very difficult to get right and it is the most complex quality of soundstaging. The SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1 gets this quality exactly right. Holographic is the word reviewers like to use but with this DAC, holographic isn't a catch word, it is a startling reality. I can listen to a string quartet and hear not only how the source sound changes when the first violin, playing a solo, leans forward and down but also hear how that same sound changes as it causes a first harmonic to resonate inside the viola, a second harmonic to resonate inside the second violin and a slight increase in the fundamental's volume as it bounces off the front of the cello. Here, with the SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1, the sound is so three dimensional not only in obvious but also in subtle ways that the experience can be almost overwhelming with the surfeit of incoming sensory data.

VII F: Sixth, there is the criterion of spatial accuracy. This is not quite the same as the above-noted quality of consistency of location. Consistency of location is scarcely desirable if what is consistent is inaccurate. A good DAC places the instrument exactly where it is supposed to be, i.e. where it was when the microphones recorded it. A DAC's failure to do this is most discernible in music that is relatively simple, i.e. not cluttered with numerous instruments. For example, a flamenco guitar player is dazzling us with his finger work but then does some tapping on the guitar's top and suddenly everything is wrong. The guitar's plucked or strummed sound was coming from the middle of the soundstage but now the tapping on the top of the guitar sounds as if it is coming from another guitar about three feet to your left. Was the recording miked badly? You play it on a different system and that finger-tapping is where you would expect it to be - only a few inches to the left of where the plucking was. Unless you have a DAC you can trust absolutely, you have to settle for an average and assume the recorded image is more or less located where several CD players agree it maybe is some of the time. Either this or content yourself with never knowing.

In revealing what is wrong or right in such matters, the SMc Audio Ultra DAC-1 reigns supreme. It unerringly depicts precise location: If the mike is suspended from the ceiling above the string quartet, you know it. If the people singing back-up in the gospel recital are swaying back and forth, you know (and appreciate) this. If the acoustic bass player in a folk group turns his body and instrument to the side -- probably because he is looking at something --you note this too. If the orchestra being recorded sounds as though it has two stereo mikes and then suddenly sounds as though it has half a dozen mikes strung all over the place, read the liner notes and you will find that this recording was done in two different sessions by two different recording engineers, then spliced together. This accuracy of spatial location and not just repeatability of spatial location is something few DACs get right. The SMc renders such accuracy in a way that is uncanny. The listener will find vastly more value in most recordings and (not surprising) will discard a few recordings because now their sound is not acceptable.