Soundstaging and imaging are audiophile fictions.

In a small hall or venue where you are seated directly in front of the performing artists playing acoustic instruments with no / minimal amplification, you will develop very distinct imagery and soundstaging. That is, if you close your eyes or put on a blind-fold. Visual cues lower your responses to audible clues. That is, until you remove the visual cues from the picture.

If you are in a larger venue and / or seated further away from the front middle of the performers, you lose soundstaging and imaging due to the effects of spacial information and tonal colouration contributed by the venue itself. While some enjoy these "colourations" i.e. the various sonics presented "front", "mid-hall" or "rear", it is not the same thing that one gets when directly viewing the performers on level playing ground spread out in front of you.

As Duke stated and to contradict Pbb's point of view, one can achieve a good sense of space and simulate the radiation pattern of an acoustic instrument in a room with a single set of speakers and a good recording. The key here is the radiation pattern of the speakers and how they load into the room.

Since acoustic instruments radiate sound in multiple directions at one time, and do so in-phase, you need a speaker that can simulate that effect. Obviously, standard front firing box speakers fail miserably at this due to their focused directionality. Dipole's ( E-stat's, Planar's, etc.. ) can do better since they have a more diffuse pattern and potentially larger radiating surface, but the problem is that half the sound that they produce is out of phase with the other half. Multiple driver systems designed to "spray" sound around ( Bose 901's, Design Acoustics D-12, etc.. ) run into comb filters and time delays.

If such is the case, what would one look for if trying to achieve the goals previously mentioned ? You need a speaker that is relatively omni-directional AND radiates all of the signal in phase in all directions AND is time-coherent. In order to achieve all of the above, it would have to be a point source i.e. the source of all sound eminating from one point. Otherwise, you come right back to having to deal with phase & time delays, comb filters, etc.. that one gets when using multiple drivers covering different or over-lapping frequency ranges with differing radiation patterns.

When you start looking for speakers like this, your market is PHENOMENALLY small. So small in fact, that i don't know of ANY speaker that is currently made that meets all of these criteria. As such, you would have to buy older, used designs if you wanted to experience what i was talking about. There are some current models that come very close to the ideals discussed above ( German Acoustics, Huff , etc.. ) but fall short in several areas mentioned above. This is primarily due to the use of a woofer to supplement the bottom end of an otherwise "full range" omni-directional, point source driver. To top it off, these systems are VERY expensive due to the amount of hand labor / out of ordinary construction required to make such a driver / speaker system.

If you can find a speaker of the nature mentioned above and work to optimize it within the confines of your system and room, all others will pale in comparison in terms of spaciousness, dimensionality and "correct-ness" in terms of preserving an acoustic instruments' natural tonal balance and timbre. This is the very reason that i won't part with some specific speakers that i love dearly, even if they do have their limitations in specific areas ( primarily max spl's and treble extension ). Those that have read more than a few of my posts know what speakers i'm talking about. Sean
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Unclejeff: I'll take answer "C", which is "both of the above" : ) Sean
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Detlof: My comments apply less to large gatherings of instruments ( orchestra ) than they do to smaller groups.

For one thing, larger groups must be "mashed together", which minimizes separation and makes localization harder to achieve. On top of this, larger groups typically have to play in larger venues, which typically means that one is sitting further away from them due to playing to a larger crowd. As such, the soundfield generated by each instrument becomes more diffuse and harder to localize. Much of this is due to contributions from ambient reflections.

On the other hand, smaller groups of individuals each have their own space in the performing area. If one can sit relatively nearfield in a small venue, the sound can literally engulf the listener while allowing a great ease in terms of localizing where each sound is coming from. One need not rely on ANY visual cues as the direct radiation reaches our ears FAR faster than any of the ambient reflections. While these ambient reflections do contribute to the total perceived sonic presentation, the amplitude is not nearly as intense as that of the signal that has travelled directly towards our ears. By combining both differences in amplitude and a wider variation in primary vs reflected arrival times, localization is therefore far easier to accomplish in such a situation.

PS... Now i remember why i said that your system must resemble "Frankenstien", albeit a far more attractive and enjoyable "monster".

Greg: Stereo was an early attempt at manipulating the signals that current day binaural recordings strive to do better. Obviously, neither are perfect but both can be quite enjoyable : ) Sean
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