Is soundstaging emblematic of reality?


Now that finally I have a system that soundstages excellently, I’m wondering if it’s actually  a vital component of a real concert experience.  In most genres of music, unless you’re sitting very close to the action, you don’t get the kind of precise imaging revealed in a good stereo setup.  That’s because microphones are usually (with some rare exceptions) placed close up. If you’re sitting in the middle to back section of an audience (which most people do) you certainly don’t hear anything close to holographic imaging, or even what most people accept as satisfactory imaging. 
Granted, it’s loads of fun to hear this soundstaging. And I certainly love it.  Some people might consider it the ideal music experience. But is it an essential component of musical enjoyment?


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Showing 1 response by audiokinesis

" I don’t think I’ve ever heard a recording that fooled me into thinking it was live music."

Once I was at an audio show. It was early in the morning, several of us who were associated with the room were there, and present was a musician (who gigs on acoustic guitar, vocals, electric piano, and drums). The musician had not heard the system before, and his back was towards it when somebody turned it on and started playing The King’s Singers’ a capella cover of Simon & Garfunkle’s "The Boxer". For the second or two between the start of the song and when he whirled around, wondering when whoever was singing had snuck into the room, the musician THOUGHT he was hearing live music. He told me there was a brief but disconcerting instant of this-does-not-compute when he saw no one at the far end of the room yet was hearing what he had assumed to be live music.

So it was over in a second or two, but at least it happened that one time.

Duke