What is Imaging?

I would recommend Chesky's Ultimate Demonstration Disk as it gives the meaning of associated terms used in audio and then plays a track to represent each.

11-21-13: Michaelkingdom
So, it is just location and separation, not depth/realism?

Well, doesn't location & separation include depth? if you determine that the artist is in front of the stage or at the back of the stage, you have depth perception, no? Similarly, location also implies soundstage width - the artist could be on the left or the right or the extreme right or extreme left or just right of center, or just left of center, etc. So, you get a perception of width.

Realism comes from the tonal & timbral accuracy of your speakers.
But, not only the speakers but also the electronics play an very important part. And, so does the listening room. It's a tangle web....

Actually you often though not always CAN pick out individual voices in a large choir both live and recorded. Some voices stand out and are more readily identified than others IME. On smaller choral ensembles it is much easier to identify individual voices and their location.

Say what!!

Very predominantly an artifact of recording, engineering, and playback. Hearing live music in a typical location in a typical venue, there is a sense of spaciousness, but very little localization of instruments, even left to right, let alone back to front. Moreover, a good deal of what there is likely owes to the processing of visual cues. This varies with the size and ambiance of venue and of course with the number and arrangement of musicians and kinds of instruments, as well as whether and how they are amplified. But in my view, when audiophiles speak of imaging, they are referring to a phenomenon that is pretty much different in kind and extremely different in degree from what would be required (or permitted!) in recreating the live experience. That's not a knock on imaging. I love it, and want my system to be able to extract as much of it from the grooves and bits as possible. But I am under no illusion that imaging enhances an illusion of "being there" at a live event. Besides, plenty of music was made for recording rather than performing live, and performance would lose some of the virtues of the recording, including that cool imaging.