Holographic imaging

The best holographic imaging I've experienced is through a Vac Avatar driving B&W speakers. There's something about cone based speakers and tubes that deliver a full sonic image that literally dances in front of you. I'm not sure I would always contribute holographic imaging to good sound staging though. It seems you can get a realistic, pin point sound stage but not necessarily have it be 3D if that makes any sense. Overall tubes tend to solidify stereo images better than solid state but I wouldn't say it's an absolute. I've heard some pretty good almost 3d imaging from a solid state amp but with a tube-pre. Room acoustics also play a big part along with the low level detail that others have brought up.

Learsfool,
stupid of me, I should have thought of adding horns to the list of speakers which do best in the fields which are being discussed here. Thanks for reminding us. Thanks also for pointing out once more the importance of the recording engineers and their miking and mixing techniques. I often wish, Mohr and Layton were still around.......

Hcat apparently sounds interesting to the untrained ear.

Let the guy go; he's championed other suspect products as well. Most of them flavor of the month products like this one.

Check the posting history. It's all there.

I have been strongly considering trying a real tube pre on my system.

I prefer the tube voiced output on my SS Carver pre to the SS one on my system currently. I'm thinking it could add a useful ingredient to my audio soup, maybe just a small pinch of additional "bloom". I've considered Acoustic Research, CJ, Unison, VTL, and DeHavilland.

Classe is one brand of SS pre that I would also consider trying from what I've heard.

I'm open for suggestions on this if anybody has some.

Not to beat this thread to death (probably too late for that ;-) ) but to me, soundstage and imaging are what happen between and sometimes to the right and left of right and left speakers, respectively (as in, "Those speakers throw a huge soundstage)" whereas "holographic" refers to the sense that sounds and instruments are "out in the room" closer to you than the plane of the speakers.

How much of this is about the speaker and how much is about deliberate or inadvertent artifacts of the recording process I don't know.

I just picked up a copy of "When I Look Into Your Eyes" by Diana Krall. On one of the first two cuts (can't remember right now) there's a piano entrance that eerily seems to envelop the listener all around the listening position. I don't know if it's "realistic," but it's impressive and in my book, "holographic."

YMMV, as they say.