I have some thoughts in reference to scale. I have had luck getting proper scale, including orchestras. Believe it or not, it can be achieved in near field as well as normal set up. Speakers must be panned properly. You must have the speakers far enough apart. If you have space restraints, then you must move closer to the speakers. In my experience you should try to get your stage as wide as possible in order to produce life like reproduction. If your speakers are too close together everything gets congested. Here is a quick way to get close. Sit in your listening chair and put your arms straight out with all fingers straight as well. Form a straight line with the tip of your fingers to your shoulder, orientate your hands so your fingers are vertical up and down as if your getting ready to clap like a seal. Next, move your arms until those straight lines are pointing right at your speakers. If you can see the insides of your fingers, do one or both of two things. Move your speakers closer to you, or move your listening position closer to the speakers. I have more believable results moving my speakers closer to me as far from the rear wall as possible. This allows for more depth perception. If your image falls apart start toeing the speakers towards you until the center image is solid again and stop. The rest is up to your speakers and your electronics. Some speakers and electronics can make images two big or to small. Now of course some speakers may not work this way. Some need rear wall enforcement or what ever. But I have had great success this way. I have had speakers 15 ft from a rear wall and 3 to 4 feet in front of me but panned properly as I suggested. It creates infinite depth and width. The whole venue will conjure and breath. I can not count how many times I have seen or listened to a system where the speakers are too close together and the representation is just ridiculous. People tend to sit too far away from there speakers and it allows for many other forces to act on the stereo. The room starts getting in the way. I really like near field. But my ref speaker at the moment is AG Duo's and they must be at least 8 ft away to integrate properly, the drivers are far apart. I get them as close as I can and wide. Soundstage is immense. Full scale orchestra is believable. Now I am really blabbering and many may think I am smoking something...LOL!
Enough detail or too much?
When I go to listen to the orchestra play, the music never sounds as detailed as it does in some high end systems. The closest thing that I have heard to the "real thing" are some of the older nos tubes. There is some smearing but real orchestras do sound somewhat smeared. It seems like the area to get right are the violins. If you can get the violins to sound silky and smooth, that would be the way it sounds, to me at least. Bass always seems to sound somewhat boomy in a big music hall. The instrument that seems the most difficult to reproduce are pianos. I do not know how any system can reproduce the sound of a real piano, at any price. The weight of the notes are so unique, I have heard some extremely high end systems and none get it really right. Just curious how others feel.