Holographic imaging

I'll take timbral accuracy, dynamics and timing over holography/soundstaging any day - if I want to know what the musicians are saying (why they are on the stage). Ralph, is there any reason why the two may be mutually exclusive - that is, does the most accurate equipment in terms of one mean a lessening of the other?

Pubul57,
I like you have been working on the same assumption, especially so, since I am in the lucky position to compare the facsimile of certain music taken from a certain hall with the real event. I started our hobby at a time, when audio writers, having heard live performances say in NY or the CSO in Chicago later compared what they had heard on their Shaded Dogs, Mercuries or their 6 eyes. These days are long gone and Norm has a good point in saying that it is difficult to find a good spot in a live venue where to compare from. I think as you do, that many enjoy their equipment even if they have rarely been to a live event. That is perfectly OK. However, if you don't have some approximation to some sort of benchmark - and basically for me it is still the AS, the "gestalt" of live music out of a huge number of live events, which I carry mnestically in me - you open the door to absolute subjectivism, which is also all right, because we all hear differently with different preferences and different experiences of what we think music is and should be. This makes Audiogon both lively and amusing. In the olden days recording engineers were trained in musicology, you had to have credits in both fields to get a top job with DG, RCA, Phillips or Capitol. Quite a number of reviewers who I found I could trust, were musicians. To this day I prefer manufacturers, who play live music, do not only listen to it. One of them posts here. You guess who it is (:

is there any reason why the two may be mutually exclusive - that is, does the most accurate equipment in terms of one mean a lessening of the other?

My experience is they are hard to find. Most horns give you dynamics of live music but lose that natural sound due to narrow dispersion. Most well designed dynamic loudspeakers have the wide dispersion to sound natural and image precisely but lack the dynamics of live music.

Of course there are a few horns and a few dynamic speakers that do an admirable job at both and sound extremely convincing as if you are there - but it is only a very few, IMHO.

Tvad, this moving of the image to in front of the speakers and way outside the speakers it typcially achieved with out of phase signals or room interactions. "I Robot", DSOTM and "In Rainbows" are recording examples that should fill a 180-degree image from the listening position in two-channel stereo, because the engineers added lots of phase anomalies in mixing.

To the outer edge of the speakers and with lots of depth from the front plane to beyond the rear wall is more typcial. It's unrelated to tubes vs. SS, IME.

When you start hearing an unusually large image (well beyond the speakers and/or with unusual height) that'll be due to some phase anomaly and it's usually not "accurate." A high ceiling (particularly with a dome), oddly shaped sidewalls and other room irregularities can contribute hugely to this. If you hear it due entirely because of electronics, then there may be some designed in phase shifting to create more than is really there on the recording. Carver actually made a living for a good while doing this.

It's not a tube vs. SS thing. Put ARC and Rowland side by side and you may notice some very small imaging differences, but one won't be "holographic" and the other not.

Dave

Shadorne, "do an admirable job" "very few" those are good terms. I think speakers are basically "pick your poison." I have three times gone back to compression drivers in horns and three time abandoned them. I have four times tried horns with other drivers and retain one. I have had had two single driver systems which were outstanding by way of having no crossovers. I have had ribbons, electrostatics, and many multiple dynamic driver systems. I have even had two pair of omni-directional systems. My quest is discontinued now as I am retired, but I don't find the solution to realism is to be found in ideal speakers or even those that do an admirable job.