'Holographic Sound Stage?'

I read the OP's question more narrowly. Luna asks whether the imaging and staging that a quality hi-fi can produce are ever encountered at live performances. My answer is somewhere between "never" and "almost never". Nonetheless, I find that excellent staging and imaging is critical to creating the illusion of live performance in a home setting. You lose a lot at home vs a live performance, but this is one area where the reproduction feels more real than the real thing. If you're a purist and a rationalist, you may reject the idea on principle. If you want to maximize your enjoyment of recorded music at home, I say "embrace it".

Just MHO.

Marty

To Dawgbyte, what type of shows have you attended that don't allow you to put the sound with the artist? I'll give you that most "electric" live shows don't have such queues since everything is amped up and pumped out via some massive speaker system.

But when the recording is of a small quartet, for example a bass, drum, piano and vocalist, positioned on a stage, and a couple of microphones are set up fairly nearby, the arrangement of artists will come through the recording due to the slightly different arrival times of sound at the mic diaphragms. If you were standing near the center of the performance with the mics, you'd be able to close your eyes and place the drummer, bass player, piano and singer.

The studio created effects use the two channels and phase delay to make our brains think a sound is coming from specific locations. If you can close your eyes an easily assign locations to certain sounds, then your system has produced the illusion very well, especially if the sounds you're pointing to have no relation to the speakers.

I agree that if one can occupy the same space as the mikes, one can appreciate what and how the mikes hear it. But no one sits that close. I had the pleasure of sitting just three rows back and center in a church setting to a three piece period baroque ensemble and the sound was practically homogenized when it got to me. I was hearing the sum of its parts when considering location despite clearly hearing the individual instruments.

There are advantages to hearing some things live and advantages to hearing some things at home. Live music allows one to emphasize with the musician(s) and the contact high that comes with listening with others. Home listening allows one to enjoy and appreciate all the more the mechanics of a recording.

I don't mean in the "mechanical" sense a rigid, soulless interpretation, but rather in the structure, timing, and highlighting of performers that would otherwise be smeared or homogenized.

All the best,
Nonoise

I understand that the imaging and soundstaging we hear in well set up systems (with the right recordings) is perhaps "artificial." None the less, to me it's one of the most fun, pleasurable and at times thrilling aspects of a good system.

I get perfectly holographic sound stage from my meager 6K, two channel system. Well, that and the concoctions rendered from my liquor cabinet! :)