What is Imaging?

Actually you often though not always CAN pick out individual voices in a large choir both live and recorded. Some voices stand out and are more readily identified than others IME. On smaller choral ensembles it is much easier to identify individual voices and their location.

Say what!!

Very predominantly an artifact of recording, engineering, and playback. Hearing live music in a typical location in a typical venue, there is a sense of spaciousness, but very little localization of instruments, even left to right, let alone back to front. Moreover, a good deal of what there is likely owes to the processing of visual cues. This varies with the size and ambiance of venue and of course with the number and arrangement of musicians and kinds of instruments, as well as whether and how they are amplified. But in my view, when audiophiles speak of imaging, they are referring to a phenomenon that is pretty much different in kind and extremely different in degree from what would be required (or permitted!) in recreating the live experience. That's not a knock on imaging. I love it, and want my system to be able to extract as much of it from the grooves and bits as possible. But I am under no illusion that imaging enhances an illusion of "being there" at a live event. Besides, plenty of music was made for recording rather than performing live, and performance would lose some of the virtues of the recording, including that cool imaging.

'Imaging' is the goal of stereophonic audio reproduction as laid out by Blumlein over 60 years ago.

It works pretty good!

The Image should be able to appear in space in a way that is nearly independent of the loudspeakers. Anyone who has heard Amused to Death by Roger Waters knows what I am talking about.

Imaging is best achieved by having the loudspeakers be equal height and distance from the listener's ears.

Not all speakers and electronics image the same way and some units are better at it than others. For example imaging or soundstage is generally considered the pervue of tube equipment rather than transistors although that is not to say that solid state gear does not image!

Depth is a function of the soundstage or imaging abilities of the system. IOW the soundstage should be a three-dimensional artifact of the reproduction.

Imaging is about the places were the instruments and voices are located. When the quality of the system is better the stage is better and also the quality of imaging. And yess depth is an essentail part for the absolute sound. Because many recordings you can listen that every part of the recording has not the same place in depth. When there is depth instruments and voices become more 3D. The level in resolution, blacks and air is important how precise instruments and voices are touchable. What I said many times; instruments and voices are in real very small in proportion. You need the right cables and sources to get the realistic proportion. When I am right you use a Pass Labs poweramp just as I do. Pass Labs give a wide and eeep stage, but instruments and voices are not very sharp focussed within the big square a Pass Labs can give as a stage. That is why you alwaya need to know exactly all the different properties each part of your system owns. At shows you hear often that instruments and voices are projected too big. The simple reason for this is that they use cables which are not able to give a small and direct focus of instruments and voices.