"They are here" vs. "You are there"

I think this has more to do with the recording methods and process, and because of that, I prefer to allow the artist and engineer to make that decision. I have a hard enough time trying to decide between cake or brownies for desert. :)

Bryoncunningham,

You make a very interesting distinction.

I would think the correct answer is clearly "you are there" at least for live or minimally processed, high quality recordings, where we start with the idea that the goal is recreating the illusion of the original event, in the same space in which it was recorded.

Therefore, a listening room which is fairly neutral, and a system's ability to image would be the key technical considerations.

Any system able to do this should not have any problems playing multitrack studio recordings either.

To me, "you are there" is the whole point. I love live classical music, and my entire aim is to come as close as possible to that at home. The single most important addition to my system in helping me achieve this was my JVC XP-A1010 Digital Acoustic Processor, along with its associated four ambiance speakers.

Not only does this do an amazing job of extracting and synthesizing concert-hall ambiance, it also somehow makes the instrumental tone colors much more natural. It's but a slight exaggeration to say that the difference it makes is analogous to the difference between seeing a painting of actors on a stage and seeing real actors on a real stage. It's absolutely amazing. And many years out of production.
-Bob

"You Are There" was a great TV show!

"I'm Not There" is an interesting movie about Bob Dylan. :)