Are there speakers that disappear regardless of the recording?

Assuming the speakers themselves aren’t resonating excessively it is always the room and placement.

Also, keep in mind that B&W’s may sound a lot better on the mid axis than the tweeter axis. Experiment with sitting there. Also, toe them out a little.

Having said this, there are some recordings with instruments hard left or hard right, and that may break the illusion, especially if your soundstage is usually behind your speakers.

The presentation of solid imaging within a wide and deep soundstage has to be available in the recording.

Then it is about the room, room treatments, and best placement of the speakers within.

Then it is about the speakers inherent ability to present the available soundscape.

Then it is about the ability of equipment to present this to the speakers.

And now we are back to the recording.

Having too much fun over coffee:-).

Except for very rare bad recording, they are always some acoustical cues in most recording related to the POTENTIAL imaging soundstage timbre and all others acoustic cues ready and waiting  to be translated for and in your room and this acoustic information is more or less well conveyed by your gear to the speakers/room for sure...The inequality of different gear for this conveying task is a common place fact...

The recording circle you alluded to, has for center : the ACOUSTIC room control...

NO one listen to the speakers alone in a small room...We listen to the speakers/room... Why ? Divide the speed of sound by the dimension of your room to know why and calculate the time your brain use to work this information between the distance of your 2 ears trelatively to the 2 speakers and the walls of reflected sound...

The initial recording of the lived musical event is a set of acoustic choices taken by the recording engineer , and they always are IMPERFECT, always a trade-off each one of them...

This recording, yes must be CONVEYED by the turntable/dac and amplifier to the speaker with more or less distortions and success, but at the end must be TRANSLATED from the initial residual or chosen  acoustical choices of the recording , TRANSLATED in the acoustical environment of your uncontrolled or controlled room...

My point is a controlled room give the best possible translation from the first recorded acoustic event to your room acoustic which is, if controlled, ADAPTED synergetically for your specific speakers and specific ears structure and history...

We always listen to the speakers/room relation NEVER to the speaker alone in a small room ...

This is acoustic and psycho-acoustic scientific fact...

Then repeating a common place fact the way you did it : "this must be in the recording first " erase the most important audio factor for an optimal perceived experience which is the  acoustic control of the relation between the speakers and the room...

A common place fact is not enough to understand the key fact here... Acoustic and psycho-acoustic...

😁😊

The presentation of solid imaging within a wide and deep soundstage has to be available in the recording.

Then it is about the room, room treatments, and best placement of the speakers within.

Then it is about the speakers inherent ability to present the available soundscape.

Then it is about the ability of equipment to present this to the speakers.

And now we are back to the recording.

Having too much fun over coffee:-).

 

 

The original poster's question is about speakers disappearing i.e. if you close your eyes do the sounds appear to be all coming from the speakers, or do they "disappear".    This is not the same as imaging i.e. can you tell where the violin is and  what it's relation is to other instruments and not the same  as wide soundstage  i.e. how large an area in your room do the instruments appear to be arrayed in.

3 different questions.

@berner99 
Sometimes the speakers disappear completely when I close my eyes. Depends on the recording and it also varies from track to track sometimes. Imaging and soundstage width and depth changes too. Seems to be very recording depended .