Are you troubled by the imaging of a symphony orchestra?

Some labels get imaging right; Decca, Philips, Chandos, RCA Red Seal, to name a few. Telarc, excellent sonics but has the 2/3 back seating and an unnatural hall ambience (but I kind of like it). DG does not get it, with it’s overmic’d unrealistic presentation. It’s not even first row, it’s a wall of sound. And Karajan’s meddling ruined some of his great performances. Post 2000 they’ve gotten much better.

Many recordings offer an up front listening position using a close multi-mic setup. You hear the different sections without much space between them and a less 3 dimensional presentation.

I like being half way back in a lively hall, instruments in their proper place with a sense of space. A good recording will have the horns behind the strings. Many engineers can’t mic and mix horns correctly, the end product has the trumpet and trombone in the string section.
And yes, I was regularly going to hear live classical before Covid. No recording captures that experience. Some of the smaller labels using proper minimal mic techniques can get somewhat close.

The SQ is good but it is troublesome the not hear the violin section on the left, the violas and celli on the right, etc.

Are you referring to older recordings where minimal mic's don't pick up the instruments evenly? There were the three mic recordings, then later 10 to 12 mic's were employed, making for more realistic imaging.

The answer is a big fat NO.

Enjoy the music.
Or not.

The OP seems to only enoy binaural from the third row.

No. 

No.

As far as the “problem” that you describe, the vast majority of my Decca, EMI, Lyrita, RCA LS, Mercury LP, and some others have no problem placing strings in their traditional places on the soundstage.