The “They are here” vs “You are there” sound topic

I think the premise is sort of off. You always want to be at the venue. The question is where in the venue do you want to be. Very few recordings are done so that you feel the instrument is in the room with you. Many studio recordings are very surrealistic and don't put you anywhere. 20 foot wide pianos do not exist. But with a well done live recording the question is where in the venue do you want to be. I prefer to be right up front 6th row or so. This is also more realistic in small clubs were you are always up front. The effect is do almost entirely to speakers and the way they radiate. Point source speakers give you a small sound stage and put you in the back of the hall. Line source speakers put you up front giving you a much larger sound stage. Point source advocates will tell you the stage is too large. I think not. They are just use to listening to miniature stages. The biggest problem for line source advocates is that most recordings are mastered on point source speakers and sometimes the translation to line source is not...right I suppose. So the main factors are speakers and recordings. Other electronics and audiophile paraphernalia make relatively little difference. Next in line would be the amplifier as you do need whatever it takes to get clean peaks of 105 dB. Then the cartridge if you do analog. 

Mike 

You are there: very expansive soundstage, feels like you can visualize the recording space.  First speaker example that comes to mind is DeVore.

They are here: forward presentation, very solid, focused images, such that the performer feels physically conjured in your room.  Zu is the classic example here.

I prefer "they are here".

To my ears and in my rooms I have found most conventional designs lean towards they are here presentations.  Projecting into the room with less rear wall interaction. A few exceptions along the way of stellar designs have done both when the recording offers it.  Conversely I’ve had Bi-polar and Di-polar designs that leaned more towards the you are there sound.  They all used the rear wall to create a hall effect to a greater degree.  Logans, Maggie, Mirage and Eminent Technology usually gave me the larger ambient field and when the venue was captured in recordings these designs almost always made me hear more of the you are there sound stage.  
Just my brief two cents on what I’ve experienced.   

Exactly right bryhifi. You are comparing line sources to point sources. There are very few if any Bi poles out there. That is a speaker that radiates from both sides in phase. Most of them, all the ones you mention are di poles. Both sides radiate 180 degress out of phase. It is not the sound bouncing off the back wall that gives you that "you are there" image. It is actually the lack of reflected sound that allows you to hear farther into the recording. Dipoles throw very little energy to their sides, up or down. Most of us that use them also dampen the wall behind them which tightens up the image even more. 

You are there: very expansive soundstage, feels like you can visualize the recording space. First speaker example that comes to mind is DeVore.

They are here: forward presentation, very solid, focused images, such that the performer feels physically conjured in your room. Zu is the classic example here.

I prefer "they are here".

Very interesting. Given the above rationale,

With "you are there", would you say that it’s a more back of the hall presentation and that images are not that solid or focused, such that you have to mentally imagine more the performers location? This is basically the opposite of your description of "they are here".

I have to be honest that when I listen to systems at shows and the quite large difference in how they reproduce sound and music I am not quite sure which type of perspective I am hearing and tend to get analytical about it.

Of course, the best systems at shows in my opinion tend to have everything. Such they both have a "you are there", but also "they are here" perspective - if that makes sense. They do an amazing job in creating all elements on stage with the right size/ proportion, but also in relation to each other. In a sense they create both the expansive soundstage which appears before you and have a laser sharp focus on images, such that the singer is located centrally and the musicians playing their instruments in the right place/ in their own spot.

2 of my best rated systems had the Lumen White speaker and the Albedo Audio speaker. Not coincidentally, I think both use Accuton drivers.