Are there speakers that disappear regardless of the recording?

My speakers are too big to disappear 

No, it does not exist. As someone else said, if not in recording its not going to happen. There are so many recordings and all are different. Some sound terrible, some acceptable, and some sound fantastic. There are some older analog lp's that will blow your mind with the unreal tubey magical sound with super wide soundstage. They do not record music in this way anymore....what a shame. 

Nah it is in the equipment not the speakers.  Speaker design helps but we made old AR 510 box speakers disappear.  Your equipment has to be up to the task.

"Are there speakers that disappear regardless of the recording?"

No, I don't think so.  The sense of space and the stereo stage is a function of the original recording.  Others have mentioned the old RCA and Mercury recordings as examples of recordings that capture that space.  Those were made during an age where recording engineers let the conductor and the musicians take care of the balance.  The engineers spent a lot more time finding the optimal location for 2 or 3 microphones.  Some more recent recordings by Keith Johnson, the folks at Telarc, Chandos and Chesky achieve similar results with more modern equipment, but adhering to the minimalist approach to miking the orchestra.  As soon as you start adding more mics, things have the potential to go downhill fast.  Decca in England had some interesting techniques that involved additional mics and were successful in capturing the space, but it was done very carefully. 

The recordings do matter a lot and setup too. Most speakers CAN disappear, and do it much of the time.

Magneplanars disappear like 95% of the time except with hard-panned, L-R, jazz. They can be finicky, but even when they're not perfectly optimized they're nowhere to be found. Switching back, almost all box speakers have some box sound to them which makes them easier to"find". 

Don't get me wrong, I love box speakers, the visceral aspects of boxes with traditional drivers keep me coming back. But Magnepans disappear with ease. 

You appear to be referring to PRESENTATION of the music in your listening environment. On this very aspect, some transducers are better than others, yet even the best of the best need a great deal of perseverance with set up for your needs. 

All upstream and downstream technology and features need to be well selected and tuned to achieve a palpable soundstage in all dimensions. When this is achieved, it can be a revelation and one's enjoyment of the music should take a huge leap forward.

This is probably not what the OP is referring to, but anyone who has ever heard the Beveridge electrostatic speakers would have to answer YES.  They generated a true cylindrical wavefront - you could walk anywhere in the room including around and between the speakers without ever being able to tell where the sound was coming from!

Good Room is a must for this magical feat!

Auditorium-23 Solovox.  Sure wish I still had mine.

I wonder if the meridians and Thiels (mentioned above) have wide dispersion and if many/most wide dispersion speakers have this quality.

My analog input 1983 active Meridian M-20 & M-100 loudspeakers are hologram generators.

My ancient Mirage M3 bipoles, as well as my LSA small bookshelf speakers (wide dispersion) disappear no matter the recording.. I gather this works for omnis also. Caveat is that while you get a wide soundstage, if precise imaging is important, I’d listen before buying as you may not get what you want.

my thiels "disappear" on all but ping-pong stereo records. and that is without any kind of special amp or other upstream electronics.

Yes from the smaller MBL 126 omni directional Loudspeakers all the way up to their Top 111 , they are great Loudspeakers !! 

We are fortunate to own 40 year old full range electrostatics and they disappear in 95% of the recordings when we added a Class A tube integrated amp last year. Really enjoying the system now.

It's the recording not the source. 

Try digital. HDCD, SACD, DSD.

right on with jasonbourne52. I have some of those Mercury Living Presence SACDs. It's another world. I have jazz recordings I listen to for the musicianship...not the recording quality. They are tough to go to after listening to Chesky recordings.

It is all in the recording! They range from sublime to awful! For Classical check out the RCA Living Stereo releases, along with Mercury Living Presence!

I have to agree with @avanti1960 until your speakers are optimized. My speakers disappear after some repositioning. But @bhvf is absolute;y correct… those old recording with one guy an the left and one one the right, are just not going to disappear. Meaning some of the disappear has to be about the recording.

to me it depends on the positioning of the speakers more than any other aspect. 

with the right positioning they should disappear with most if not all recordings. 

unfortunately it usually requires lots of depth in your room, the speakers need to have open air all around and ~ 4 to 5 feet from the wall behind them.  then adjust toe angle until you have a combination of a focused center image and disappearing speakers.   

If it's not in the recording, it's not going to happen. For example a mono recording with out any embellishments is going to sound like a mono recording. 

I think it depends on the recording as you've discovered. I find quite a few old jazz recordings are almost entirely split left and right so the only center "fill" you have is less directional sound like drums.