Some years back while living in a big ranch style house in San Diego I
was fortunate enough to have a largish rectangular living room (not by
todays standards though). Equipment was simple enough, Polk RTA-12C's
hooked to a Kenwood amp and preamp and a Fisher CD player (which I truly
loved and still can't find a cd player to this day that is able to
create such a warm and smooth sound as that cheap $149, 1986 cd player
did). On a live recording of Def Leopard on CD, one of the tracks
featured a guitar solo. The sound of that guitar emanated from behind
and above me so that it was coming from where the wall met the ceiling.
I enjoyed having people over and popping that CD in, as everyone would
sit up, turn around and look for a speaker behind them. It was
startling. You could pinpoint the spot it came from but, it was only
that portion of the song featuring the guitar solo. No other portion of
that song, or any other song on that CD or any other CD or vinyl record
could duplicate that experience. It was really amazing.
On my present system I get thrown for a loop as it seems so real when
sounds come from other than the speakers when the stereo is playing the
soundtrack/dialog during a video and I'm only using 2-channel.
Room interface? Yes. Life-like imaging? Yes. Room interface the reason
for the life-like imaging? Probably.

John