What is Imaging?

I have many Chesky cd's. In the past I love the way of recording. But some time ago I listend again and I did not like them so much anymore. These days the level of recordings is even higher. This makes the older Chesky recordings less special.

Rnm4,

Very well expressed. I agree entirely. If you close your eyes at a live performance of classical music, for example, it is very hard to pick out individual voices in a massed choir or individual instruments. I enjoy that my system is able to do this, but the imaging that it creates is very different from the actual sound of the performance.

"So, it is just location and separation, not depth/realism?"

Sure it's depth and realism and dimensionality too. Sometimes you hear systems with great spacing between the performers laterally and back and forth, with quiet spaces between the instruments but the images just sound flat. I think it was HP who used to say "painted images on a painted sea." You want those images to have body and dimensionality as well. When you are sitting in your chair, you want to not only be able to point to that saxophone, but you want to be able to feel like you could get up and walk around it because it's so dimensional sounding. It's all part of imaging.

Location, isolation, and separation of instruments in space...depth is more soundstage(all instruments in a plane) related...front to back, lateral dispersion, etc...realism kinda falls in both camps...more so imaging...as in vivid presentation, 3d sound...im a soundstage man...I like a big, open, sound...with depth....even better...with instruments "spread out"

Phasecorrect,

IMO, imaging and sound stage go hand in hand. Once you put air around an image you create greater depth of sound stage.