AE is undoubtedly a fundamental human percept, recognisable even by very young and very old naive listeners, discussed e.g. at the Tonmeistertagung conference last November.
Expectations about reproduction of potential envelopment appears to be a topic where monitoring and recreational listening differs markedly. Recreational sound seems to generally take the pragmatic approach, that AE is difficult, if not impossible, to control under a domestic setting. Maybe therefore, most effort is directed at an even LF frequency response across the listening space, thereby at least ensuring other elation.
Many studies on LF reproduction, and on the use of subwoofers, were based on old “stereo” content where LF collapse was more prevalent, especially in pop music. New pop collapsers may still be found, despite there no longer being technical reason for doing so. It is sad, however, if such practice is continued merely to increase the loudness a bit more, or because of fora like this where old dogma are uncritically repeated.
Do yourself a favour and listen under controlled conditions, see earlier posts about requirements, including test tracks and E/L magnitude vs freq graphs. Chances are, it will be an auditory revelation following you literally to the end.
People confuse phase shift with diffusion all the time, it seems.
