Is imaging reality?

@OP,
Yet another interesting post!
I concur with a number of previous posters-
Listening to a live concert performance usually doesn't have the focus of instruments that a recording does.
But, listening to a live performance allows a more personal connection with the artist(s), so whatever is lacking in precise imaging is substituted with the thrill of the moment.
Bob

It's a simulation.  That's the best we can shoot for.

Lincoln Center,Carnegie Hall,Radio City Music Hall..... If your system can make you think your in the front  at any of these venues you must hff ave one hell of a system  or your dreaming .... I would say dreaming. I have been to concerts  there and the sound was amazing. I do mean I sat close to the stage ,within the first 8 rows .I have been to out door concerts Classical and Rock ,Bway Shows. Alot goes into the recording of live shows ,to me its hit or miss with alot of misses.....

I listen to primarily classical, and primarily orchestral. I also mentioned this in a similar thread:

No, at a live venue, a concert hall, we do not really hear ‘imaging’, but as I stated, I think the difference is, in a concert hall, we also are watching while listening vs only listening to 2 channel without any visual help, and we need/want to make up for not seeing the musicians play, or where we know they are typically located. Thus, for me, listening to orchestral music in my living room, without visual cues, I like to have those imaging cues separating the musicians on the stage as I know they are. In this strange way, it makes it more realistic, both in soundstage width and also more importantly depth. I want that timpani sounding as if is way behind the speakers and at the rear of the stage. Imaging recreates the stage, the room, the hall, etc. when we cannot see it.

The same goes when listening to trio or quartet jazz recordings. I like to hear where each musician is. Or, chamber works, etc. But when I *see* a Jazz trio at a club, it isn’t important. I’m also watching.

Now, it still takes a well recorded album to pull this off well.

And interesting enough, when watching the Berlin Philarmonic live (I have a subscription) through my 5.1 channel HT set-up, everything surrounds me, also not realistic, but all is fine, as I am watching while listening, and it matters little.

When I go to symphonic concerts I prefer halfway back somewhere in the middle-ish. Have sat down front many times and find I like the sound and the view less.

Opera is a little harder to say since in many places the orchestra is in a pit or down very low.

I have never chased after 'realism' in audio, nor in photography, one of my other hobbies (I shoot black and white mostly....and the majority of the real world is not in gray scale). I know those who do, in audio at least, and there is nothing wrong with that. A good recording and a good print need not be 'realistic' for me. They just have to be good.