Looking for the next level in imaging...

+1 to mijostyn post ...

The third dimension is not instruments at different distances away from you, any system can do that and much of it is artificially created by the mixing engineer with echo. The 3rd dimension is the sense that and instrument or voice is a 3 dimensional object in space. If that space is full of reflections, echo and amplitude smear you will not be able to delineate the 3rd dimension at all. This is the state of most systems including some incredibly expensive ones.

I understand his point here but we must had the right balance between all surface (reflecting-diffusive and absorbing) then we can have too much room treatment if one of the three factor is unbalanced with the others for a specific room geometry size and content ..

A good live recording with a horn section is a great example. A top notch system will allow you to identify each instrument in space. Most systems show you the horn section, but you can not separate the instruments easily, the same applies to vocal sections. The spatial cues are usually there, but acoustic errors can easily overcome them because they are at a much lower volume. IMHO there is no such thing as too much acoustic treatment. An anechoic chamber is better than a poorly treated room.

I used my own mechanical equalizer with 100 distributed resonators located at specific places and this is more than passive acoustic treatment. We can create not only good imaging and holography ( the third dimension which is the sonic volume of each instrument ) but the end goal more than imaging done right is the listener envelopment (LV) Source width auditory (ASW) ratio.

But no, an anechoic room is a dead space , unnatural, it is better a bad room we will improve ... ☺😊

@mijostyn 

+100 on over treating being better than under treating. Especially in smaller rooms where control is even more important. 

Some of the best imaging I've heard from a box speaker was a pair of floor-standing Nesteroviches.  I couldn't believe that such a klunky, traditional-looking speaker could disappear so completely.  They were very well set up in a room, oh, 25' deep x 15' wide, with lowish ceilings, not much room treatment to speak of.  Horowitz and Ben Webster fully occupied the space behind the speakers.  Very impressive.  Also they are beautifully balanced, tonally speaking.  Nesterovich himself is long gone, unfortunately, but you can occasionally find them used.

I demoed the BAACH system.  The tech guy dials in to your Mac and sets it up.  They're very nice and offer a ton of support, but I heard almost NOTHING--seriously, almost no effect at all.  We talked about my ProAcs and the room, both of which are not terribly bad, IMO.  Finally he asked about my hearing, if one ear is different from the other.  Most certainly.  My left ear is very frequency-limited, and the tech said that will negate the desired effect!  I kept the demo for a few days to play for an audiophile friend who has superb hearing, and he could hear the effect very well.  But neither he nor I liked the "processed" sound.  Bear in mind that this was a rough test in a modest system.  It costs nothing (except a temporary charge on your credit card) to try it.  Clealry not for me, though.

Speaking of the recording engineer's magic, this live album has long been one of my absolute favorites, both for the music and for the quality of the recording. Kavi Alexander of Water Lilly Acoustics is a recording master. A Meeting By The River won the 1994 Grammy Award for Best World Music Album and its success spurred engineer and Water Lily Acoustics head Kavichandran Alexander to record more collaborations. 

A Meeting By The River is universally praised for the authenticity and realism of its recording and its 2008 vinyl release is often cited as audiophile-quality reference material. The session was captured using two customised valve mics in a Blumlein-array arrangement (using Tim de Paravicini tube gear, IIRC) into a converted Studer two-track analog tape recorder and the louder you play it, the more every rattle and scrape of slide on fingerboard and every microtonal flurry draws you into its rarefied, spontaneous atmosphere.
A Meeting By the River review

zuesman

mihorn, Unfortunately this is not the cleanest most natural sounding system in the world, sorry to burst your bubble but there’s a much better systems out there.

It is possible that my system is not the cleanest and the most natural sound system in the world. There can be many better sounding systems which I haven't heard yet.

Please kindly let me know what and where is that much better sound system. Alex/WTA