Does your system take you there or...?

The recording is of "there" not "here" - if it sounds like they are "here" something is wrong, probably lack of resolution needed to convey ambient cues of place (where the musicians are).

If it's not a live venue recording then I suppose "there" is inside the engineer's head. I can accept that usually, and since I listen to a lot of small group piano jazz my only complaint sometimes regards weirdly wide soundstage drums, but I can live with that. I've mixed a LOT of live small venue shows and the goal is to get an even sound to everybody...not so simple...I do minimal EQ if possible and rarely compress anything (kick drum sometimes)...a little stereo reverb makes the crowd feel better than they actually do.

I respectfully disagree with some of you that think going "there" is better. I very much prefer being able to turn off the lights and "feel" the performers in my room. That's not to say, though, that my room remains the 12*16*8 space that it is. The area beside and behind and sometimes in front of the speakers dissolves to differing degrees depending on the recording.

The effect that I am talking about though is still is like there are living breathing persons in the room that you can hear, smell, touch. It may not be some person's ideal, but it sure is captivating.

Wolf, I may just pick up some pachouli oil and other "scents". Although, when I listen to certain live performances, I can also hear/smell bourbon and cigars.

At any rate, I am always excited to listen to my rig. For me, that's the very essence of good hifi.

PMB

HA...next time I listen to Bill Evans' "Waltz for Debby" I'm gonna rattle the icecubes in a manhattan, smoke a Pell Mell, and try not to ignite the hairspray in Judith From Accounting's beehive while apologizing for causing a run in her stocking from an errant brush with my wingtip.

With live jazz you're only going to get the "being there" mojo by sitting directly in front of the band (usually a good thing requiring luck)...otherwise, although it can still be a way cool experience, sitting anyplace else makes you subject to the whims of an often cheezy sound system run by itself ("set it and forget it"), or by Clem, the disinterested and underpayed hearing impaired soundman glued to his iPhone.

Indeed some prefer one over the other, and if a reviewer is prone to being in the "music came to me "group, themn all his reviews of gear will be different than the reviewer who prefers to "be there in the studio during the recording".

Which is more appealing to you now may not be the same in a few years.

I read all the time about aging audiophiles who long for the old sound of days gone by, definetly not the studio control room folks, but the more romantic types.
They don't mind giving up detail for what they percieve as musicality.

Personally I don't get that.

Nope, I want my cake and eat it too.

I want to be transported to the studio and have all the music that was recorded returned to me in full detail with all the musicality intact.

I've heard systems like this. They were quite expensive.
The gear disappeared and just the music filled the room.
The room was full of detail and musicality.

Then I discovered that it wasn't just about throwing bucks at the components like speakers amps and sources.

That liquid detailed sound was also due to some other things going on in the background that weren't as obvious as the exotic speakers and amps were.

It was upgrade power to the gear that made the music sound more pleasurable.
The upgrading done to the already great sounding pricey components made the sound even better.

This I could afford, and I've been quite amazed and pleased that such improvements are available to we folks who would love to swim with the big fishes but just can't afford to.

You can and do get the best of both worlds if you try.

If the recording is a studio multi track type, you'll know it and yet it will still please the ear.
If it's a more natural,less processed recording,you;ll notice it.

You'll be able to live in both worlds and enjoy both.
You won't be confined to a system that's always in your face, or a system that always puts your face in a studio.

It takes time to assemble a system like this, and personally I spent years floating about in this hobby changing amps and speakers, yet never getting the full measure of any of them.

If it wasn't for my good fortune to be able to listen to some very good systems that paid just as much attention to the "things that can't make a differece"as to the things most of us think matter most, then I would still be out there wandering in the desert of audio discontent.

Now when I listen to the music I let it take me wherever it wants to, and I enjoy the ride.