Sorry Rnm4 and Aroc that I might not have made myself entirely clear about what the shorthand "They are there" catchphrase represents for me. The "there" in question is the space the original performance was recorded in, while "they" of course are the performers.
One benchmark criteria for a high fidelity recording (in the sense Harry Pearson described in coining 'The absolute sound') is that it perceptually succeed in capturing/transmitting some sense of the performance acoustic and the players' relation to it/interaction with it - "They are there". All I'm saying is that to finish this job we must include the proper function of the playback system. Again, of the conventional choices listed in the title of this thread, "They are here" (the performers are in your room) is wrong, and "You are there" (you are in the performance space) is impossible, so a modicum of "They are there" (the performers are in the performance space, with you observing through the imperfect 'window') is what we can actually achieve/ought to strive for. "They are there" hinges upon the regrettably accutely limited ability of the recording process to capture the total effect; the best we can attempt with the replay system is to try to avoid fatally further obscuring whatever degree the recording accomplishes that goal.
Anyway, I've gotten a lot heavier here than the whole topic really bears scrutinizing. This was just something that had dawned on me recently during listening: it's not "they're here", it's not "I'm there", it's "they're there". Just a simple distilled concept, no biggie, but it's more satisfying and less cognitively dissonant to me than the dichotomous choice of the other two. And Rx8man, were I an English major, I hope I'd be a lot easier to read than I fear I probably am... :-)
One benchmark criteria for a high fidelity recording (in the sense Harry Pearson described in coining 'The absolute sound') is that it perceptually succeed in capturing/transmitting some sense of the performance acoustic and the players' relation to it/interaction with it - "They are there". All I'm saying is that to finish this job we must include the proper function of the playback system. Again, of the conventional choices listed in the title of this thread, "They are here" (the performers are in your room) is wrong, and "You are there" (you are in the performance space) is impossible, so a modicum of "They are there" (the performers are in the performance space, with you observing through the imperfect 'window') is what we can actually achieve/ought to strive for. "They are there" hinges upon the regrettably accutely limited ability of the recording process to capture the total effect; the best we can attempt with the replay system is to try to avoid fatally further obscuring whatever degree the recording accomplishes that goal.
Anyway, I've gotten a lot heavier here than the whole topic really bears scrutinizing. This was just something that had dawned on me recently during listening: it's not "they're here", it's not "I'm there", it's "they're there". Just a simple distilled concept, no biggie, but it's more satisfying and less cognitively dissonant to me than the dichotomous choice of the other two. And Rx8man, were I an English major, I hope I'd be a lot easier to read than I fear I probably am... :-)