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Is soundstaging emblematic of reality?

Now that finally I have a system that soundstages excellently, I’m wondering if it’s actually  a vital component of a real concert experience.  In most genres of music, unless you’re sitting very close to the action, you don’t get the kind of precise imaging revealed in a good stereo setup.  That’s because microphones are usually (with some rare exceptions) placed close up. If you’re sitting in the middle to back section of an audience (which most people do) you certainly don’t hear anything close to holographic imaging, or even what most people accept as satisfactory imaging. 
Granted, it’s loads of fun to hear this soundstaging. And I certainly love it.  Some people might consider it the ideal music experience. But is it an essential component of musical enjoyment?


128x128rvpiano
rvpiano's avatar
rvpiano OP
2,653 posts
 
+1 wester17,

I totally agree that recorded and live music are two different entities.
And yes, the audio experience can be more even enjoyable sonically than the live experience under some circumstances (but, to me,not all.)
The point is, some would have you believe that soundstaging is the EQUIVALENT of live.  Not so!
audiokinesis
2,733 posts
 
" I don’t think I’ve ever heard a recording that fooled me into thinking it was live music."

Once I was at an audio show. It was early in the morning, several of us who were associated with the room were there, and present was a musician (who gigs on acoustic guitar, vocals, electric piano, and drums). The musician had not heard the system before, and his back was towards it when somebody turned it on and started playing The King’s Singers’ a capella cover of Simon & Garfunkle’s "The Boxer". For the second or two between the start of the song and when he whirled around, wondering when whoever was singing had snuck into the room, the musician THOUGHT he was hearing live music. He told me there was a brief but disconcerting instant of this-does-not-compute when he saw no one at the far end of the room yet was hearing what he had assumed to be live music.

So it was over in a second or two, but at least it happened that one time.

Duke
peter_van_keuren's avatar
peter_van_keuren
20 posts
 
I use an ambient loop system in the rear, with its own amp. I want the music to sound like it's happening right in front of me, right smack in the middle of my living room, not something happening between my front speakers with maybe a tad bit of depth. 
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