The real thing is overrated. I have to wear earplugs for most live performances because they are so loud.
When I have seen symphony orchestras it’s lovely, but I don’t think the acoustics are that great. In a blind test, I think I would prefer the recorded version over closing my eyes at a symphony and there’s a good reason for close micing.
I agree that live rock music is not good. Classical music is entirely different and I'd strongly disagree with what you've written, I am guessing it's simply down to inexperience. I've been to 300+ classical concerts (orchestral, concerto, solo piano, solo harpsichord, chamber music, choral, and smaller baroque ensembles. With around 6000 classical CD/SACDs, some of it pictured
here, we are in the middle of a move) and most speaker systems I have heard are a pale imitation of the real thing. Including the JBL 306 MK2 + subs (own), Genelec 8361, Kii 3, Revel Salon, JBL 4367 with the Genelec and both JBL being the worst with the "glued to speaker" sound. Subsequently when I posted about this to ASR most Genelec owners solve this with multichannel which is a no go for me since I do not want to be format restricted; most of the greatest classical performances are from the mono or stereo era (and let's be clear and distinguish great performances from great recording quality; subjective and objective audiophiles nearly always focus on the latter with little knowledge of the former). All of these speakers were like black and white photographs compared to the real thing. Kef Blade Meta 2 were a bit more promising but I heard them under stress being keenly aware of another engagement soon after and having to keep checking the time. And Vivid Giya have never not impressed me but with the caveat of under show conditions.
On imaging I am not really sure what to make of this, for one how is it measured? I have learned a bit about this from Erin's channel as he is the first person to go into the differences in horizontal beamwidth and I do find myself in agreement with him on preferring a wider radiation than narrower and then having to "fix" that with the speakers by toeing them in. But this is mostly about soundstage and not imaging.
And this is where my interest in MBL started, as I like a bit wider radiation (of the speakers Erin has measured Kii 3 most closely resemble my preference) what happens when we go to the far extreme with widest radiation possible*? And I had an online friend who has probably been as many classical concerts as me rave about the MBL. And he did not talk in audiophile terms about them, he kept relaying them to concerts he heard as well as their tonal realism. When I asked about soundstage and imaging some language barrier might have come into play but he seemed uninterested in it. His system is from the 90s, some big fridge-esque B&Ws and whatever electronics he bought from the dealer at the time. I never got the sense he was an audiophile
audiophile as we only ever talked about music, concerts, and books about composers and musicians.
And there is no real "imaging" at live classical concerts. I will do my best to make an approximation- all under the assumption that one is seated centrally and somehwere within the first 20 rows.
Solo piano - near mono
Solo harpsichord - near mono
Chamber music - varies on how far apart the musicians are but near mono or narrow stereo
Smaller baroque ensemble - stereo
Orchestral - stereo but more correctly multichannel as here we finally start to get into the importance of direct vs reflected sound
Choral - as above, again depends on the number of musicians, and more variables
*I have owned Ohm Walsh speakers but I never felt they were that much different from conventional speakers. I have only heard MBL under show conditions with that awful and loud electronic music and for the brief time I was able to tolerate that noise they too sounded like convententional speakers, effects like hearing something from the far extreme of the speaker I have heard with conventional speakers too.