"I don’t hear imaging and soundstaging in the concert hall..."
"But in smaller venues there may be like a jazz club, a choir in a church or a symphony orchestra will have wonderful imaging and loads of ambiance."I would agree with viridian. Concerts, classical music, are not hi-fi. It is much more bland. My experience is mostly in larger concert halls, but mostly front row(s). Two Bluetooth speakers ran by an iPod are more "exciting". When it comes to smaller venues (think juke joints), ambiance is definitely there but imaging is not. Once it is about "rock music", talking about accuracy is a joke. It is all distorted to begin with.
Sound in the concert hall is greatly influenced by the number of bodies present. I am not sure that original designers/architects take that into account.
If you prefer rock CD that has ambiance, I would recommend Hindu Love Gods. It was recommended to me by Michael Green and, despite me not being perfectly aligned with some of his assessments of it, it does have ambiance. If you crank it up, you are right there in the garage where it was recorded. Except that it was not recorded in the garage. Who cares?
