How important is it for you to attain a holographic image?

Newbee,  you are absolutely correct.  I simply listen to music (all of it has depth and air, the fringe benefit of having sought "holography"), and revel in it when the recording reveals such.

When I hear this revealed to the extent of being able to visualize the artist in three dimensional space, I will make a note of it, and post it on this thread; it might take a few days.

@newbee  Hence my belief that full-scale orchestral recordings are the toughest--and to some extent, impossible--test of systems and the rooms they're installed in.

@orpheus10

—-“I stand by that statement 100%, “

Suite yourself. Doesn’t make it a jot more reasonable to keep standing by it.

If I declared “Without a shadow of a doubt the most desirable car is the 68 corvette”
everyone would understand I am talking for MYSELF since I used the word “desirable” which is a subjective value statement.

No matter how many times I stand by that claim, that will remain the case. To think otherwise is to be confused about the nature of subjectivity and objectivity.

—-“Since whether you know it or not; it is 100% impossible to get holography without having the other desirable elements of audio; “

So you claim. I hope you won’t be insulted if we don’t automatically take everything you claim as Gospel Truth. I haven’t seen reason yet to presume we are in the presence of an enlightened audio guru - writing style aside :).

My own experience suggests your claim is incorrect. I have heard plenty of systems do some incredible dimensionality and soundstaging while sounding to my ears bereft of convincing instrumental timbre, or dynamics, or other traits.

There is no perfect audio reproduction system. All have compromised to one degree or another - something that some other system may do better, or that is preferred by other listeners.

Therefore someone who chooses a system that does not do everything exactly as YOU want it is not by default desiring some coloration akin to a smiley faced eq. It may simply be that they have chosen their own set of compromises where the system has better fidelity either to some aspect of the source or to the qualities of live music that another system doesn’t do as well.

I played in a large funk band for many years. If my main criteria were to reproduce that type of live sound as closely as possible any number of pro PA speakers would kick the crap out of the typical audiophile system no matter how “holographic” their image. Holography wouldn’t even come in to the picture as the live sound never had such a quality to begin with.

So there is no “one size fits all” criteria or claim that can be made as you seem to want to make.

Getting a nice deep wide soundstage is best accomplished, at least to a large degree, by a method that eliminates or reduces trial and error. Correct speaker placement is critical for obtaining the best possible soundstage, but the ubiquitous trial and error technique of moving a little, listening a little is bound to fail to come up with the absolute best locations. The best you can do is find a local maximum. The best way to determine the best speaker locations for any speaker in any room, for whatever stage of room treatment employed, is using one of the test CDs that contain a speaker set up track, also called out of phase track. Another tip is start with speakers closer together and work outward. As fate would have it most speakers should be placed closer together, not farther apart. You know, for best soundstage. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than speaker placement.