You are there-they are here

From my experience, speakers will impact the "your are there" vs "they are here", which I usually refer to as speakers being forward vs. laid back. In my last speaker comparison with a friend, I found the Von Schweikert VR-4s to be fairly laid back, while my SP Tech Minis and the much-praised KEF LS50s were more forward. I love my VR-4s, but would like to get a bit more of a forward sound from them. Not sure what, if anything, would enable me to do that. Just want a slight touch more forward a presentation.

Of course, as mentioned above, a recording will affect this as well.

I prefer they are here, in front of me, space permitting. I say this as I can never get over the fact that large scale performances can never fit into my room and I can never get that fact out of my head unless, after a while, I'm able to suspend belief and lull myself to audio nirvana. Then they are here.

All the best,
Nonoise

For Tom6897,

It is "disbelief" that you want to suspend.

Shakey

Samuel Coleridge coined the phrase "suspension of disbelief" as it related to literature. Human elements or truths were injected into fantastical tales so as to make them believable. The same goes for movies like "The Matrix".

I don't see that as the same thing in audio since we are starting with the premise that what we are hearing is close the real thing, or as close as we're going to get, and we then use our minds to cement it into reality. We believe that what we are looking at and listening to is a well intentioned artifice and it is that belief we reject (suspend) in order to believe the illusion of actually being there or that they are here.

I think. :-)

All the best,
Nonoise

That we know it is an artifice is, itself, a disbelief (of its reality). That is what is suspended.