Speakers that can reveal orchestral instruments' positions


Can you tell the positions of instruments in orchestra from your favorite orchestral music CD/SACD/LP/...?
For example, horns and percussion from the back and strings from the front?
Telling the left and right positions are not that hard, but the front and back? 
If your answer is convincing yes, could you tell me about your speakers/amps/source/cartridge and the recording?
I could feel a little bit of 3D imaging on my Apogee Diva, but not as much as I could when I listen to orchestral music from live concerts. I feel far less from my Harbeth C7es and Tyler Linbrook signature systems. 

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First, two speakers cannot image "height". You have two variables, when the sound arrives at each each, and how loud the sound is for each air. There is no way to derive "height" from that, so don’t bother trying .... though you may convince yourself it is there and/or your room acoustics may give an impression based on inconsistent frequency response w.r.t. direction (which is not a good thing).

I get a good laugh when I read people saying they made some minor change and the "soundstage doubled", or some other superlative. As pointed out, most of the soundstage is in the recording, so it comes down to how it is recorded and mixed. Remember, only two variables w.r.t. imaging, when the music gets to each ear, and relative volume.

After that, it is a complex interaction of your speakers and room. If either one is bad, you lose your imaging. On the speaker front, it comes down to the same things always discussed, smooth on-axis frequency response, and smooth decaying off-axis response. If you don’t have smooth on-axis and smooth decaying off axis response, then the volume balance between instruments gets messed up due to frequency response variations. So when you do research, look for products that either publish good on/off axis frequency response and/or where you can find tests on the web. "Trust your ears" it not always the best advice. Speakers will sound much different at home versus in a demo room. You are listening to the room as much as the speakers, and a purpose built demo room can hide problems that you may not be able to avoid at home.

If you aren’t willing to work on room treatments, then forget about good imaging. This comes back to timing. If you have strong reflections, your brain doesn’t know what arrived first and it needs to be able to clearly identify the same signal reaching both ears. This also plays into the importance of smoothly decaying off-axis frequency response. First reflections and strong reflections are all bad. Side walls in front of the speaker, behind the speaker, and often forgotten is behind the listener, but also the floor and the ceiling. You don’t want to eliminate all reflections as then you loose that nice artificial sense of "space".
Actually, speakers image height real well unless you have system issues OR you system is not optimized, I.e, isolated, etc. Everybody should know by now there are three physical dimensions involved, depth, width and height, let’s call them x, y and z, that are captured on a recording. The more resolved a system becomes the more apparent all the various dimensions of the soundstage become, including height. A lot of the spatial information contained on the recording, or at least should be contained, involves first and second reflection, reverberant decay, echo, and similar acoustic parameters. Space and time, that’s a total of four dimensions. 🤗
To be able to hear what you describe depends on many things. It is a trinomial of: Recording, Position of the speakers and the minimum treatment of the room (if you have nothing to control the room very hard you can hardly hear what you want).
In my case with the recording in SACD of:
Rossini: Famous Overtures, by Neville Marriner: Academy Of St. Martin In The Fields, with the Overture of Il Barbiere Di Siviglia.
Audiophisycs speakers, Rotel preamplifier and Rotel amplifier.
The room treated with bass trap and obsocation in the first reflections and diffusion in the back. When I have taken my system or recording to other rooms with friends, it is essential to remove the speakers from the walls and control the first reflections.
In this way, the person in the sweet spot will feel that the members of the orchestra occupy a place in space, both in length and depth. Without these three things it is not possible to obtain what you require, that three-dimensionality.
This recording is so good that by closed eye you will be able to describe where the first violins, second violins, oboe, clarinet, violas, cello, bass, etc. are even heard as the pages of the music sheets are moved.
In order of importance, without a doubt the recording, if it is not recorded and / or mastered to obtain this three-dimensionality, you can never obtain it.
Secondly the position of the speakers in the room and have some control of them.
Finally, the sound equipment, I have verified this in many cases, modest but well positioned teams manage to obtain very good results, obviously with an excellent equipment you will maximize the result but without the other two points mentioned you can never get what you are looking for.
If the goal is to get a live concert in your room Ohm Walsh speakers are the ticket. Even with poorer quality and mono recordings and also the setup is relatively easy compared to most.
My answer to the original question is YES.  However the degree to which one can hear specific locations within a soundstage is dependent on the quality and synergy of equipment used.

I hear width, depth and height from my system, in my room.

My reference is a Jazz Quartet.   Can I close my eyes and point to the location of each musician ?    Does the soundstage allow me to see the drummer moving brushes along a cymbal ?  Is transient response good enough to hear the initial strike of a cymbal or drum head, then the sound of the material struck, then the decay of the note ?  Do I hear each drum head in distinct space ?   Does the image project brass notes as distinct notes, or blended together without much distinction ?   Does a vocalist move their head around the microphone ?

I have experienced pinpoint imaging, and answered YES to the above questions using the following speakers:

Triangle Titus 202
Rogers 15ohm LS3/5a
KEF LS50

The KEF are a recent acquisition and I am still tweaking location to achieve best performance.  Currently, they are about 6 ft apart, about 3ft from side walls and about 4ft from the back wall, and I sit about 6.5 ft way from the center line.  The cabinets are toed in slightly.  Imaging is superb (pinpoint again), along with frequency extension.  But I hear some upper bass/low midrange emphasis that affects vocals.  I understand that careful positioning can largely remove this issue.

The ability to hear pinpoint imaging was improved by changing to a Triode TRV-P845SE as my main amplifier.  I have also used recently restored MAC 225 and 240 to good effect.  I heard the Triode amp at several audio shows, and at each show the room it was in was among the best I heard.  I waited patiently, and finally acquired one at an attractive price.

Preamps have a significant impact on the image one hears.  I thought I was doing well using a Conrad Johnson PV5.  Then I acquired an Audible Illusions M3 preamp, which was a significant improvement.   A few years later, I upgraded to an Audio Research SP10-MKII.  WOW !  Not only pinpoint imaging across the space in front of me, but I could hear depth and height !   I could hear fingers moving up and down the neck of a standing bass.   I could hear the relative locations of a trumpet bell, and the mouth of a tenor saxophone.  Each occupied distinct space that could be identified as they played in unison.   More recently, I picked up an Audible Illusions M3B (current model). This pre retains the virtues of the ARC SP10, but has a silent background and better transient response. 

Equipment:   Linn LP12 ITTOK LVII / Denon 103D SS Ruby rebuild / Cinemag 3440 SUT   -or-  Technics SP25  AT1503 MKIII arm / Ortophon CG25DI MKIII MONO cartridge