Is imaging reality?

Like most of the contributors I love to hear the individual instruments or groups of instruments across the soundstage on a well recorded CD. However a well recorded CD will produce sounds from the orchestra that you do not generally hear in the concert hall, whether you want to hear them or not. For example I recently played a bassoon concerto and could hear the intake of breathe from the soloist before he/she began the solo, the click of the keys ( I call them keys but I am sure there is an official term that I can't remember) and the shuffling of the players feet, all sounds you would be unlikely to hear at a live venue unless, perhaps you sat in the front row. Also I have found that, particularly on many jazz piano trio CDs, imaging is very artificial with drums out of one channel, bass out of the other channel and piano in the middle. In reality at a jazz venue the musicians are placed much closer together and the imaging , therefore ,is not as pronounced. So what you hear on a CD will rarely be what you hear at a live venue, whether it be imaging or extraneous sounds.

I enjoy artificial, "made up" soundstaging and stereo effects almost if not equally as much as the real thing.  Out-of-phase insanities, echo chamber overkill, multi-tracked vocalists, horse race pan-potting, etc., etc., are tons of fun.  Sure, sometimes it can be overdone more than a tad, but if it is done with panache it's a pleasure-and-a-half.

Interesting topic.  I have had season tickets to our symphony orchestra for over 10 years.  At times I have closed my eyes and imagined I was listening to a HiFi system playing.  Of course, it sounds like a very good system, but the imaging didn't really stand out for me.

You can read some reviews by John Atkinson at Stereophile. He has made a lot of recordings and usually rembers a lot of how the mics were placed and some of how it sounded and comments on differences or similarities.

Mics are often placed a bit to the front of an orchestra but it differs. I also think that some imaging exists when you listen live also but it may be less clear since you often have larger distances or some suboptimal placing.

@mazian

For example I recently played a bassoon concerto and could hear the intake of breathe from the soloist before he/she began the solo, the click of the keys ( I call them keys but I am sure there is an official term that I can’t remember) and the shuffling of the players feet, all sounds you would be unlikely to hear at a live venue unless, perhaps you sat in the front row

I love that kind of stuff in a recording. Heck, in most cases you would have to be an orchestra member yourself to hear those things. But I like the immersive quality that type of thing brings, regardless if it is realistic, particularly for an orchestra performance. I have a couple of the Royal Concertgebouw Live box sets, and really like the various ambient sound captured. It provides a feeling/sense of ’being there’.