'Holographic Sound Stage?'

A good system will just replicate what is on the recording. The greater the resolution, the better the effect, if it is there to begin, depending on mic placement and mixing. Case in point concerning the Mercury studio recording of 10cc's "I'm Not In Love". The soundstage expands with the echo delay effect in the mix. I have had this recording for many years and I often use it, along with others to see how a new component is interacting in the system. I cease to be amazed at how this "halo" effect of the mix just keeps expanding completely to the walls of my room front and back the greater the resolution of the system is increased, the speakers completely disappear, just one case in point. What is more remarkable is how the lead vocal becomes more natural, coherent and focused amid this effect, just amazing.

In live music this is never heard or experienced so the reality is that a microphone can seldom capture what you hear in a live setting but some of the old RCA and Mercury recording engineers did a very credible job in replicating what you might expect to hear from a live orchestra at a venue if not ALWAYS missing the natural tonality of real instruments as credible as a great system may get.

I have pairs of speakers in 5 rooms off two different source systems and get a holographic sound stage to varying degrees with each. It mostly has to do with how well set up the speakers are in the room for holographic sound. Setups in only two of these rooms are highly optimized for holographic soundstage. The other three are more general purpose so I have to compromise somewhat in those.

The best holographic soundstage comes from my large OHM F5 series 3 speakers, which are in my larger L shaped listening room.

NExt is a pair of Dynaudio Contour 1.3 mkII monitors in my smaller 12X12 listening room.

Third is a pair of Triangle Titus XS monitors in my somewhat large family room (lower volume listening mostly there due to high volume limitations with those small monitors)

Fourth is my smaller pair of OHM 100 series 3 speakers in my wife's sunroom, where setup options are limited and acoustics are most challenging.

Fifth is an old pair of custom modded OHM L speakers that I run in my unfinished area on occasion. Casual litening only in there so large holographic soundstage is not of concern.

I also run a pair of small Realistic Minimus 7 speakers outdoors on my deck in warm weather. HOlographic soundstages do not generally happen much outdoors with no room acoustics, so these do not do much of anything in that regard but still sound quite good.

I attend classical concerts about five or six times a season. A holographic sound stage is not what I first notice or enjoy about the sound of a live orchestra.

A few years ago I read a book which attempts to describe sound in the home and how to make it more like a real musical event. The adjectives used to describe the sound in successful systems were: Tone, Dynamics, and Presence.

This fairly closely describes what it is that I hear at the symphony and what I now value and try to recreate in my home system. Soundstaging is nice and it does exist to some extent, but it is not what I focus on when listening to live music or to my system.

The book is Jim Smith's "Get Better Sound."

It is an interesting phenomenon or paradox. Holographic soundstaging is not part of a live musical event. Nevertheless, it seems to be one of the things that makes play back of recorded music seem more alive.

My modest little headphone system has quite good holographic soundstaging, you know, considering that it's a HEADPHONE system.