Hi Tom -- all of this from July -- wasn't on the top of my head so I traced backwards my various posts to gain some context. Talking about psycho-acoustic effects and their causes goes all over the map in this part of this thread. I will reply using the terminology I am comfortable using, but if I say somethng confusing please feel free to follow up.
My comments came out of a discussion in this thread with Ralph Karsten about Blumein and his microphone technique.
No. However I separate out the notion of locating an object or sound in space from the notion of 3D images or 3D soundstage.
As I said upthread:
If I am looking at a stage in a concert hall with musicians on it, I only need two dimensions to specify the location of a specific muscian. I don't need height to specify his location. If there is a choir on risers behind the orchestra I need to add height to specify the location of a specific chorister. This is not an account of listening to a stereo, it's just me in the concert hall looking at the stage.
When I sit listening to music in my audio room I see my speakers and amplifiers along with the floor, ceiling and walls enclosing that gear. That is all quite dimensional. If I close my eyes and listen to my system playing an orchestral piece whatever I experience is happening in my head. It is an active experience as my perceptions occur in time.
That experience is largely a product of my current perception of the music coupled with my past experience of knowing a) about instruments and orchestras performing in a concert hall and b) what may be either an innate or learned behavior of locating objects in space. (I suspect we have the ability innately and refine it through experience, but I don't really know where that ability comes from.) What happens in my head is a product of the music, my system, my room and my imagination or thought process.
Seeing an orchestra laid before me in 'my mind's eye', it is pretty easy to locate sections and instruments in two dimensions. I have experienced most of the orchestral instruments first hand so it is easy to 'see' (imagine) them before me: trombones, clarinets, the different strings, xylophones and timpani, etc. I know where they are. I don't tend to focus on the images so much any more, it just happens -- I primarily hear the ensemble that is performing.
The more that what I hear sounds like an orchestra in hall with air and space the more realistic it is for me. That is a sense of 3D dimensionality. There are times -- and I've written about this in reviews -- when I can have a sense of individual performers more in bas relief than as three dimensional humans but occasionally I have written the word "palpable". I find that I need to focus intentionally on individual locations, individual performers to have that happen. That is active listening where I am using more of my cerebral cortex, and that tends to pull me away from the more limbic or holistic experience that I enjoy.
I realize that the psycho-acoustic experience of people playing music and seeing them within oneself is very appealing to many audiophiles. And some gauge the quality of a system on its ability to induce that experience. I tend to appreciate following the composition through tonality, dynamics and timing -- the critical elements of music -- more than my ability to imagine the performance visually though that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
