"I am there" vs. "They are here"

Great post and replies. I tend to agree that the more resolving systems provide more of the “I am there”, but I am in the minority because what I ENJOY is the “they are here”. Maybe that is the reason every time I upgrade my system I can hear the improvement, but am somewhat not as satisfied. That probably has to do with my taste in music. I would imagine the majority of listeners here are classic/jazz fans. That FIM Pawnshop SACD is great and if all of my music was recorded like that I may feel differently. However the fun is sucked out of most of my studio recorded disks with my current system. Music like Floyd, Jewel, and Stevie Ray are shrunken down to a distant stage. My system is Sony/CJ/Virgo. What can I do to bring Jewel back into my room???

Joekras, tweak the system to death before upgrading again; power supply, direct power lines, cables off the floor, support/ coupling & de-coupling for source, speakers & electronics, speaker placement... you can have lots of fun -- and maybe bring the Vaughan Bros closer to home!

Cheers!

Great thread and posts, guys.
Since we're almost totally at the mercy of the recording,
is it the case that a moderately dead room with a near-field setup will ALWAYS tend to produce a "they are here", deeper perspective (using the room!), and PERHAPS a "you are there" to a lesser extent IF the recording has the info...; whereas that "live/dead-end" room treatment, especially with flush-mounted speakers (having NO ability to offer much less stage depth BEHIND the speaker plane, is limited to producing only "you are there" recorded depth IF there's any in the software? In other words I find that I get lucky a whole lot more often with a nearfield setup in a damped room. The recording provides what IT HAS, and the distant front wall anchors an automatic stage depth.
Similarly, isn't multichannel simply trying to synthesize the "we are there" without having to pull the speakers off the boundaries? The software AND hardware better be damned good to pull THAT off!.... Gordon Holt, my friend Tom Horrall all claim it's coming, but I've yet to hear a multichannel system that pleases me musically AND spatially then my 2 channel in the nearfield in a medium-sized deadish room. Sorry to be repetetive...it's late.

Subaru, not only must s & h/ware be good, as you note, but also the multi channel RECORDING. What exactly is to be wired into, say, the rear channels? The cellos, the violins, the echo (from where -- the Opera Hall?), the conductor swishing through the air??? Rumour has it that sound engineers have not yet been given a standard for recording in multichannel.

In my small experience of multi-channel audio, I haven't yet grasped where exactly I am "situated" while listening: on stage with the orchestra, in the first row (but then the sound comes from the front... the best simulation I've got was in the middle of a (empty -- hence reverberations) room.

On another note & quite against grain, I often have NOT experienced "pinpoint" imaging when listening to music live... rather, it's the combination of sight and hearing that "pinpoints". But I am definitely there!

Maybe another way of referring to "they are here" (i.e. pinpoint imaging, "I can clearly see each & every musician on stage") and "I am there" (i.e. the feeling of overall participating in, or being enveloped by, the musical experience).

Cheers!

Good one, Greg.
I often note at my favorite venues (Symphony Hall and Jurdan Hall in Boston) that NO pinpoint imaging occurs.
The closer perspectives in a medium-sized hall can be better correlated visually, but the larger Symohony Hall's imaging can be a cruel joke, by contrast! Most high $$-paying mid-orchestra seats "see" the right-rear stage brass coming from the left-wall first reflection, for example.
Yet the fullness, detail, sustain and decay are all ideal, we are REALLY there.
Had a chat with my friend Marty Pearlman after the Boston Baroque's nicely-done performance of Monteverdi's Orpheo last Saturday night, where he informed me that Telarc is pulling their support for BB, much to his chagrin.
Especially in light of Telarc going to great lengths to
audition their new surround recording techniques for classical orchestras in large halls. More boos and hisses for 9/11!