OP The depth behind the speakers is great, just not much in front of them- unless it’s one of those songs that has a part where it has that inverted phase trick. Then it washes over me. I want that all the time.
I guess you are talking about the tunnel sound or the mid-range far behind speakers. It happens when an audio system sounds unnatural which sound stage is far behind speakers. The speaker makers try to pull the sound forward but they can’t do it because the veil in front of sound images is already too forward and the veil irritates the listener. The actual mid-range is behind speaker, but the veil/glare is already hitting the face of the listener that makes sound very bright and noisy (left speaker in below video).
If an audio system sounds natural, the sound stage comes forward like the original music naturally.
Original music
A sample of natural sound system. Many systems can sound closer to this sound with right audio cables and some tweaks. Alex/WTA