The “They are here” vs “You are there” sound topic

They are what they are. They are here is easier to achieve. They are here is sounds so good and clear its like they are here in your room. But you still know your room is there. They are here was the near impossible to attain goal for quite some time. Still is for most. With a lot of recordings probably always will be. But you never know. What the right tweaks seem to be showing is there's way more in those recordings than a lot of us ever thought.

Still, fact remains, they are here is a limited version of you are there.

Because with you are there, well, you are there. Your room no longer exists. Your walls, floor, ceiling- all sense of the physically limited space you know yourself to be in- is gone. With you are there you are... there. The recording studio. The concert hall. The whatever. 

You are there is a lot harder to achieve, primarily because a lot of our sense of the size of the space we are in comes from subtle very low frequency vibrations. Think about it. When you go to a concert hall you know roughly the volume of the hall even with your eyes closed. A monster king dome size concert sounds bigger, almost like being outdoors. Almost. You can hear and feel the difference. There is no reverb outdoors.

The reverb of large spaces is unique to large spaces. So you are there depends heavily on extreme low bass fidelity. 

The disappearing speakers act is sufficient to deliver they are here. Only truly magnificent deep bass response is capable of disappearing your whole room to the extent required to achieve the sublime state of you are there.

@Millercarbon - thanks for your definition. However, it seems that there are two camps that still prefer one or the other. Like people choosing to build a setup aimed at the “they are here” sound over “you are there”, maybe rightly so as you said because limitations in room dimensions and acoustics in order to achieve the amount of fidelity and layering in the lowest of bass. Such that in most people rooms the “you are there” principle may create too much bass boom, bass quantity over quality. 
Would also be interesting to know your thoughts and that of others on:

- which type of speakers fall in one or the other category in your opinion?
- what type of sources, amplifiers or even cables fall in one or the other category in your opinion?
 Unless it’s mostly about the room in your opinions.

You are there is more than you being in the physical location. It is more psychological than that. It’s being transported to the time and place and emotional state. In other words, you are there is being there (existentially)

There’s no difference. It’s a semantic argument.

Interesting views, here’s a user comment I found for instance on SST Sistrum platforms and racks:

“It feels as though the window into the music is even more clear, that a film has been stripped away making the illusion of actual musicians in the room even more compelling. This is important to me, as my pursuit has always been of the "they are here" and not the "you are there" variety...”

One of the examples I was wondering why and how people make the distinction. There are more of these views and explanations I found in a recent edition of the Absolute Sound magazine dividing the camps. Let me find it and I’ll share it here as well.