Is imaging reality?

No, what we hear from a good recording on a good system in a well treated room presents as something I've never heard in a concert hall with respect to pinpoint imaging.  I'm not a professional musician, but while I lived in the midwest I attended 20-30 concerts a year in many different venues.  Full scale orchestral, Bach passions, recitals, and chamber music-- pretty much a full spectrum of classical.  Even with string quartets, sitting three to four rows back center hall, if I closed my eyes, I could usually not pull apart the 1st and 2nd violins unless I knew the work well enough to distinguish the parts.   I actually had this discussion with one of the cellists of the Indianapolis orchestra.  He advise me to loose my front row seats and go for 1st row balcony.  His point was that "symphony" implies that the parts are to be heard as a whole (soloists excepted).   My response was that I could stay home and hear that on my very good system.  I came to live performances to experience something I could not experience at home, that being watching him and his colleagues work feverishly to do justice to Herr Beethoven.  I also told him I dearly loved the complex tone of his instrument, which was utterly lost even a dozen rows back.   All of this is OK as far as I am concerned.  If all I listened to at home was large scale orchestral, I might not be too concerned about imaging, but I do listen to other non-classical stuff where the engineer and musicians intended a musicians in the room effect. 

@OP,
Yet another interesting post!
I concur with a number of previous posters-
Listening to a live concert performance usually doesn't have the focus of instruments that a recording does.
But, listening to a live performance allows a more personal connection with the artist(s), so whatever is lacking in precise imaging is substituted with the thrill of the moment.
Bob

It's a simulation.  That's the best we can shoot for.

Lincoln Center,Carnegie Hall,Radio City Music Hall..... If your system can make you think your in the front  at any of these venues you must hff ave one hell of a system  or your dreaming .... I would say dreaming. I have been to concerts  there and the sound was amazing. I do mean I sat close to the stage ,within the first 8 rows .I have been to out door concerts Classical and Rock ,Bway Shows. Alot goes into the recording of live shows ,to me its hit or miss with alot of misses.....

I listen to primarily classical, and primarily orchestral. I also mentioned this in a similar thread:

No, at a live venue, a concert hall, we do not really hear ‘imaging’, but as I stated, I think the difference is, in a concert hall, we also are watching while listening vs only listening to 2 channel without any visual help, and we need/want to make up for not seeing the musicians play, or where we know they are typically located. Thus, for me, listening to orchestral music in my living room, without visual cues, I like to have those imaging cues separating the musicians on the stage as I know they are. In this strange way, it makes it more realistic, both in soundstage width and also more importantly depth. I want that timpani sounding as if is way behind the speakers and at the rear of the stage. Imaging recreates the stage, the room, the hall, etc. when we cannot see it.

The same goes when listening to trio or quartet jazz recordings. I like to hear where each musician is. Or, chamber works, etc. But when I *see* a Jazz trio at a club, it isn’t important. I’m also watching.

Now, it still takes a well recorded album to pull this off well.

And interesting enough, when watching the Berlin Philarmonic live (I have a subscription) through my 5.1 channel HT set-up, everything surrounds me, also not realistic, but all is fine, as I am watching while listening, and it matters little.