How important is it for you to attain a holographic image?

Hearing a live performance through speakers has always been the goal and what attracted me to the hobby when I first heard a high end system at the Sony Center in Berlin as a kid. I played second bassoon in the Wisconsin Youth Orchestra for awhile, sung in the Madison Boys Choir and my father played a number of two hour piano concerts practicing hours a day. I know what live music sounds like, just as many of you do. What I want to hear when a good recording is played is exactly what was played. In my opinion it is holographic meaning that I can close my eyes and feel like I’m in the concert hall and place each instrument that is played in space. The Tympany is far left rear, the bassoon and oboe middle right center, the flutist front left. Yes the speakers need to also produce the dynamics and hold a properly sized image of the instruments  . . . I just played Peter Hurford playing Bach Organ music this weekend and I felt like I was in the church, organ 200 ft in front of me. That’s not a parlor trick. That is a great performance meshing with a great recording on a high end system that is dialed into the space that it exists. Yes there are many poor recordings and I actually usually prefer studio produced rock albums because live performances are usually poorly recorded from a badly set up PA system. It can be engaging being a part of the crowd but if I want to hear the music I go for the studio album. As mentioned above I find most holographic recordings are those jazz and classical recordings miked correctly. . . 

Well said hifidream and exactly right.

+1 @hifidream

@helomech +1  Well said!

It is a parlor trick, although I agree it can be pleasant on small combos (jazz, folk, chamber).  You simply don't hear it with live music, even sitting close to a jazz combo.  To create it is a matter of absorption and reflection .... I have created the illusion in different dedicated rooms of enormously varied shape.  If your system is in a living area, almost of necessity you have to compromise.

I am in the tonal balance and reasonable ambience camp.  I can sit back, close my eyes, and enjoy the music, just as I do in a live concert (and I attend at least a few every month).