"They are here" vs. "You are there"

This is a good, intelligent discussion.

IMO the original question is another example of overstating the importance of soundstage/imaging in high end audio. As a system's resolution increases you'll hear more soundstage information, but in and of itself that information isn't really important to the enjoyment of listening to music. As an example, hearing Harry Belafonte's voice bounce off the different surfaces at Carnegie Hall is at most interesting. It's a good test of the lower level resolution of a system. But what does it have to do with Belafonte's performance?

As a practical matter very few recordings actually have real ambient cues. This is true even in classical recordings. The current trend in studio recordings is to completely suppress the acoustics of the recording site and to synthetically create an ambiance at a later stage in the recording chain. Literally there's no real there to be transported to.

With my rant out of the way, "you are there" is a my preference and I consider it more accurate.

Al, I agree with you about the purist recordings, but then we're talking about what amounts to probably less than .1% of recording output.

Your point about the sound aura. There are venues and types of music where the acoustics of the venue are part and parcel of the performance. I'm thinking choral or organ works in cathedral type settings. In a more typical concert hall I too hear that cushion of air that accompanies the music, but I don't think of that sound as integral to the musical performance. As audiophiles we focus so much on the sound of things even when some of those sounds are purely extraneous to the music.