Something seems not quite right here. When I refer to a forward soundstage I mean you don’t even need to get out a measuring tape to know that the vocalist is betweend 10 and 12 feet directly in front of you singing 2 feet above your ears. Snare drum hit almost precisely 8 feet behind and 6 feet to the right of the vocalist. That’s now about 20 feet in front and to the right. Air off the stage and reverb from the room way up to the left and in the corner approx 30 feet away.
Are you telling me that you can specifically pinpoint extremely low level noise reflecting off everything in the room and you can be certain that sound is "mapping" the room so realistically that you know the upper left corner of the sound venue is 10 feet up and 30 feet to the right of your listening position?
Is the size and air of the venue different for every recording? If you say yes I’d like to know who else on the planet is having this same sort of experience with headphones or IEMs. Don’t get me wrong. I do realize that all the "air" and low level info is there. Headphones are the best way to ensure you’re able to hear all the information including the extreme low level noise that fills out the soundstage with precise cues as the entirety of the venue.
Edit:
I should add for those that might be new here that a recording must be "special" in order to present a listener with such realistic dimensions. I'm only referring to those types of recordings, not all of which are recorded in live venues but rather in studios with sound recording 'magicians' at the helm. I won't go down the list of all the ones I know because many others have covered them on Audiogon Forums.