Image width is one of those things that sneaks up on you. You don’t always know it’s missing—until one day, there it is. A guitar you swear is playing from beyond the left wall. A room reverb that wraps so wide, it seems to come from behind your shoulder. A backing vocal you didn’t even know was there, now floating just outside the speakers like it’s been waiting to be heard.
That’s not a trick. It’s not DSP or surround processing. It’s pure two-channel stereo doing what it was meant to do: recreate space. Real space. Space that doesn’t stop where the speakers are.
So where does that width come from?
A lot of it starts with speaker setup—specifically, how the speakers themselves are positioned. Can you point them straight ahead, with only a degree or two of toe-in? That alone can make or break width. Most speakers need a little toe-in to focus the center image, but too much and you collapse the stage. Everything gets laser-beamed to the middle, and the edges disappear.
Then there’s the distance from the front wall. If the speakers are shoved too close, the sound has no room to breathe. Width needs space—not just side to side, but front to back. Pulling the speakers out gives the soundstage a chance to open up, to detach from the enclosures and expand into the room.
Spacing between the speakers matters too. Too narrow, and you’ll never get convincing width. Too wide, and you break the center. There’s a sweet spot—and once you find it, everything starts to snap into place.
It’s easy to overlook how much control you have just by moving the speakers an inch or two at a time. Not guessing—listening. Tuning the angle, the spacing, the distance from the wall. Letting the stage build naturally, without being forced or pinched in (something I cover in great detail in the Audiophile's Guide books).
Because when it’s right, the sound doesn’t just come from the speakers. It surrounds them. It spills out beyond them.
But it’s not just the room. Your electronics have a say here too. Just like we talked about with depth, width lives in the details—those low-level ambient cues, that sense of decay and spaciousness that can get wiped out by an overly aggressive preamp or a DAC that rounds off transients. If your system compresses everything into the middle, you’ll never hear the full stage.
When it works, it’s not just sonically impressive. It’s emotionally gripping. You lean forward. You get drawn in. And suddenly you’re not listening to speakers anymore. You’re listening into a space. A studio. A concert hall. A cathedral.
With careful setup, the right equipment, and a little patience, it’s an illusion anyone can achieve. One speaker at a time.
