Should a stereo soundstage be 3D or 2D?

+1 what @gregm said.

With the right speakers, room acoustics, components, and let’s NOT forget cables - a good recording will immerse you in the performance and the size of the venue and its related acoustics will will become very apparent.

I have a recording of a single Harmonica being played in a church, with pipe organ in the back ground. The resulting sound "transports you" to the venue complete with reverberations and echoes off the walls and ceilings - it is very 3D.

The venue acoustics start to become even more apparent with higher resolving cables - i.e. IC’s, Speaker and power cables.

Most components and many speakers today have the capability of reproducing those subtle acoustics, but very often it is the cables that are not capable of allowing the extremely delicate signals associated with venue acoustics to be adequately transferred between components and speakers.

Also, much of the "dimension" of a recording can be lost due to noise in the various cables - which impacts the component’s ability to faithfully reproduce L/R channels as recorded, impacting image and therefore the sense of "space"

YES - I am a cable believer :-)

Hope that helps - Steve

@twoleftears - I think you are correct, in that the first two channel recordings were by comparison to later recordings simply using the two channels to achieve instrument placement in a single dimension across the image. Then sound engineers discovered instruments could be "located’ in two dimensions, i.e. front to back also.

then some artists, using a technique called phasing, are able to fool us into thinking the sound is behind us.

However, based on my own observations, it would appear that recording two channels very accurately captures the venue acoustics, i.e. those little reverberations and echoes off the ceilings and walls, which seems to "fool" our senses into hearing height. Perhaps height is not the right term, maybe it’s more a "sense of space", in particular, a large space..

So if we can reproduce the recorded signal "accurately" we should be able to recreate the recorded image, complete with its sense of space - yes?.

I’ve only recently become aware of this "effect", thanks to the cables I now have in my system. They are DIY and so over the course of their development, I became increasingly aware of how the details of the venue acoustics improved with each version of the cables and how those reverberations and echoes played a role in recreating the image with amazing reality, i.e. sense of space.

With the advancement in recording technology and the also audio equipment, I believe three dimensional sound using two channels is now a reality. You just need the right gear.

I don’t know if any system is capable of achieving your "Flamenco Challenge", mainly because audio enthusiasts spend a lot of time trying to get rid of reflected sound adn perhaps we need to utilize an element of that. But as we learn more about this hobby I can see a day when your challenge will be a achieved.

If you happen to have the name of such a track - I would be interested hear it on my system, which I believe has an innate sense of space.

Regards - Steve

Perhaps the reason why some live concerts appear two dimensional is because of the two really large "walls" of speakers each side of the stage.

Even orchestral concerts are mic'd these days - but if you get in the right concert hall, you will definitely hear depth and height(i.e. sense of space) from a live performance.

The live recordings made in churches and smaller halls tend to exhibit more front to back and a greater sense of space. I have several tracks that excel in making you believe you are right there in the midst of things when played on a two channel system.

One of the better rock recordings that also provide the grandeur of the hall it was "supposed" to have been recorded in is "The Best of Supertramp". A fine example of studio sound engineering at its very best Dire straits also has some great live recording.

Regards - Steve