Quote Originally Posted by Woochifer
Boy did you ever get that right! The whole notion that the quality of a recording and its imaging properties depends solely on how well it mimics a live performance is incredibly outdated, and ignores the huge variety of sounds and musical experiences that studio recordings can produce. I'm in agreement with Sir Terrence that imaging is about audibly placing the location of a sound within a soundfield. And in that endeavor, properly speaker placement is oh so important.

A general rule of thumb is that the speakers should be no more than 60 degrees apart before the center image becomes unstable. Multichannel setups are more tolerant of wider angle front speaker placements because of the center speaker, but the surround speakers should be no more than 110 to 120 degrees off-center.

Albums like Dark Side of the Moon and The Final Cut from Pink Floyd layer environmental sounds with the instrumentation in a way that simply sounds unlike anything that can possibly be produced live on a static stage. In the context of limiting the entire audiophile universe to reproducing live concert hall experiences, does this therefore mean that recordings that cannot produce "true" imaging are therefore also not "true" music? It sure seems like that's the view that a lot of audiophiles are trying to convey in an underhand way.

And even accepting that live performance reproduction is the ultimate goal, two-channel is hardly adequate to achieve that goal. If "true" imaging is about conveying depth, then two-channel has got holes galore, because it cannot convey the back soundfield nor adequately provide a solid and stable side image. Whenever I'm in a concert hall, the sound is an all enveloping experience. Even with the best recordings from Telarc, Shefield, Chesky, etc. played back on well placed high end systems, the reproduction falls far short of creating the all-encompassing imaging that you get inside an acoustically tuned concert hall, or even a local club. The best two-channel reproduction can convincingly convey much of the dynamics, the scale, and the tones of a live performance, but it falls short with the imaging and the depth perception.

A simple comparison between the two-channel and multichannel versions of Chesky's Swing Live recording provides a good contrast in how imaging and depth greatly expand with the addition of surround channels. The two-channel recording is superb, with a very well recorded front soundfield and good imaging. But, with the multichannel version, the side imaging is solid and stable, and with that in place, the depth is far more palpable and convincing, and the width of the perceived soundfield expands greatly. This same disc also has a 6.0 version that makes use of high mounted speakers to convey a sense of height.
I am always amazed at how like minded we are about sooooooo many things audio.