What should you hear?

People that attend live musical events and fail to locate instrumental voices, via ear, should spend a bit more, on their seating.        Of course; it helps to know something about the hall/venue, the seating arrangements, and acoustics.         For acoustic Jazz, Blues, Chamber Music, etc gigs: get there earlier and pick a seat, that allows for a balanced sound stage, imagining where binaural mics might be placed, if one were recording.                    That’s all assuming venues with decent acoustics.

@rodman99999 
I agree on seating position in a concert hall or club and the acoustics. Here in Philly we have a mega million dollar overdamped concert hall which is such a shame. The orchestra moved from a 150 year old venue with excellent sonics.

As stated above, the recording of an orchestra may not give a true reproduction of the live event. Depending on engineering and recording techniques, it may sound flat and closed-in or may sound open with great depth. I prefer not to compare it to live, but to enjoy a great performance with the ambience of a concert hall. I like my listening spot to sound like I'm sitting in mid-hall orchestra seating.

@rodman99999 --

People that attend live musical events and fail to locate instrumental voices, via ear, should spend a bit more, on their seating.       Of course; it helps to know something about the hall/venue, the seating arrangements, and acoustics.        For acoustic Jazz, Blues, Chamber Music, etc gigs: get there earlier and pick a seat, that allows for a balanced sound stage, imagining where binaural mics might be placed, if one were recording.                   That’s all assuming venues with decent acoustics.

From my chair it's not about "fail[ing] to locate instrumental voices," but rather that the sonic nature of a live acoustic event deviates intrinsically from a reproduced ditto in a home setting, and that also in the sense that the precision of instrumental placement that can be found in the latter isn't as pronounced in the former. These impressions are based on a variety of concert venues with very good to excellent acoustics, positioned mid-hall or the 3/4 section of the seating rows, as centered as possible. I'm a fiend when it comes to finding the proper seating position, mind you. 

Still, despite the fundamental difference of presentation from a live acoustic event (less so an amplified one), it's my go-to reference when trying to humbly approximate its traits/characteristics via the home stereo, and not the other way round. 

Rodman,

It is true that one could find a seat up front that provies a nice stereo spread and allows one to aurally locate instrumental groups/soloists, but, that seat might not be close to ideal for other reasons--tonal balance, proper mix of reverberation, etc.  For example, in "shoe-box" orchestral halls, it is often the case that seats about 2/3 of the way back down the hall are better than up front.  Also, in any hall, the ideal seats would be a small portion of the total seating, so saying that everyone should spend more to get better seating simply doesn't work.  My point was that listening at home is a different experience, and in at least one aspect, the difference can be in favor of a good recording played at home.  But, of course, the whole experience of a live performance is, to me, much more enjoyable.  This is particularly the case with large-scale classical works where the power and scale cannot be matched by a stereo system.

For some other forms of music, such as rock, the non-sonic factors that make the experience enjoyable play an even bigger role.  Frankly, if my stem sounded as bad as the sonics at a rock concert, I would have long ago quit the game.

larryi-    This is what you said, ".....it is not that realistic because you almost never get the kind of precise instrument placements one has on recordings when hearing the music live. If you close your eyes at an orchestral performance, you really don’t hear as precise an image; you use your eyes to get the placement."      And then, "It is true that one could find a seat up front that provides a nice stereo spread and allows one to aurally locate instrumental groups/soloists.....".       If you’re intentionally choosing seats, that provide for other listening perspectives/objectives, why would you bring up recordings not being, "that realistic", with regard to imaging and instrument placement, knowing that seating, which would provide such at a live venue, is available?       Personal preferences are just one of a plethora of variables, when listening to music is the subject.       Happy listening!