Speakers "Disappearing"

All things equal, the electronics also make a big difference. Same speakers, music/source, room, cables, and now throw in a good class A SET tube amplifier in the mix and the speakers will just melt in the room. A good tube preamp will also paint a very different picture of the music between and around the speakers. 

Speakers 'disappearing' is what you want and where you need to be.  Sure, if the guitar is on the right, in front (or behind) the speaker, thats where its going to come from.  I remember the first time I achieved it and its a combination of speaker placement, a good hifi, cables and electricity, a good recording, good room acoustics, a bit of reading, tweaking and understanding.  But, that's the beauty of the hobby.  

I have often added devices that make me think I hear performers in my listening room, but then at a later time thing I hear a further improvement. As I have said recently I have found that two of my 16 Zilplexs were not on the center line between my speakers. Previously I had found that one was about a quarter of an inch lower on the left side and the sound seemed to come more from that side and when I corrected it, the image was better.

But correcting the two misplaced Zilplexs had much more impact. In conjunction with my new Tripoint Thor Elite, the image just opened up giving me a sense of being in the room of the recording and hearing the decay of sounds and having three dimensional information. This was especially true of some vinyl recordings but not initially true on my DSD music server recordings. That difference has since closed.

The last four years have seen a great improvement in the feeling that I was at the recording event. I must say that this is a wondrous but expensive event. There is nothing like hearing Thelonious Monk in my listening room while I was in my Stressless chair. The opening of the sound stage in front of you is worth the effort.

I have found that the openness of your electronics, your speakers and room acoustics are all factors regarding your speakers being able to disappear. I have a simple Michael Green Audio system using Roomtunes for acoustical tuning of the room, which is not symmetrical. I can tune for a focused or expansive soundstage. My speakers disappear when I'm listening near field, mid field or far field and the soundstage extends outside the speaker positions. If you want you can get info on this approach at http://tuneland.techno-zone.net.