The Disappearing Act

Agreed with those said…disappearing act largely depends on original recording. While a well-set-up system and room are essential, the way a recording is engineered determines how effectively the soundstage is created and whether the speakers “disappear” into it. 

IME, the disappearing act reflects the synergy between the recording’s spatial information and the playback system’s ability to reproduce it faithfully. Even the best system can’t make poorly engineered recordings disappear, but with a great recording, the illusion can be simply magical.

@blisshifi 

You’re right—while the “disappearing act” is essential for creating that sense of realism, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. A system can image beautifully and place instruments with pinpoint accuracy, but without proper tonal balance, harmonic richness, and dynamic effortlessness, it can still fail to convince the listener of its authenticity 😊

I get this most of the time and it puts a smile on my face every time.  Instruments that float in space or sound like they are right next to my chair.  Definitely dependent on the recording and the volume at which I am listening. Although I experience it at lower volumes as well.  I don’t know how much mood and other psychological aspects effects it or if it’s more of a matter of paying attention to the music and not being distracted by other things.

IMO and experience that sound quality is from the components and nothing to do with system synergy or anything else.  Either your gear can produce that or they cannot.

Happy Listening.

In my case, it is speaker placement (aka room acoustics). And only so. Whether it is a low budget (active) pair of loudspeaker or a more expensive one: Only when I considered all aspects of the influence of a room, I could make the ’disapearing act’ become reality. The recording itself does not seem to have a (big) influence. Up to now, it ’happens’ with every tune since I did the speaker placement correctly.

After meticulous work with loudspeaker placement and the room(s). Funny thing, I did not have to spend (or invest) 1 cent into room correction.

Unfortunately, it took me too long to understand the importance of the room. Because I did not pay enough attention to this fact. Tutorials by Dennis Foley from Acoustic Fields helped me to get it right.

Disappearing Act refers to the speakers. It is the listener's inability to localize the speakers when music is being played. Usually humans should be able to figure out exact location of the sound source for frequencies above 120 Hz or so. Certain speakers have to ability to recreate the sound stage without drawing attention to itself. That is what you refer to as "Disappearing Act," or your inability to localize the speakers.