In the real world ---- not the make-believe world of the recording engineer [I can say this because I was one] --- musical instruments and the human voice have special characteristics depending on your proximity to them. The degree of warmth that you perceive increases as you become closer to them. It is that degree of warmth that subtly informs the listener as to the distance [thus the depth] from which the listener is located from the performer [vocalist or instrumentalist]. I once had the Concertmaster [Principal Violinist] of my orchestra [an earlier career] complain that no recording ever represented his conception of his own playing. When I pointed out that his instrument was clamped between his chin and his collarbone and that HE heard characteristics of his instrument that NOONE else COULD hear because of the direct conduit to his ear, he nodded and agreed. He was as close as one can get to the source of the music. Most recordings are the recording engineer's idea of what you should hear and are compromised in ways that we can't imagine. Orchestral music was hilariously interpreted by the engineers at Columbia Records when every solo instrument was represented in what I like to call a "Totem Pole" in that every solo instrument was dead center, one on top of the other ! With a twist of a "Pan" control, any input can be moved across the room and that vocalist who was sitting next to the pianist can quickly be moved next to the bass player. Commercial albums in which the performers are actually contributing from different cities are magically mixed by the engineer into a hopefully agreeable combination of sound. Some are obviously suspect and others are wonderful. We haven't heard the "real thing" since 78RPM recordings were recorded in one take with zero editing.