Did I mention Polk's SDA? For the most enveloping imaging possible, regardless of upstream components / architecture, I'd at least check that out. Like all things audio - turntables, tube amps, electrostatics, rear loaded horns, OB, mono only, line arrays, Lowthers, DSP crossovers, class D - it's not for everybody, else POLK would be the richest speaker manufacturer by far.
Interesting that you mention SDAs. I heard the big boys at a friend's house, and thought their stage was downright squished. Maybe it was just his room though. (He did have them set up with the interaural crosstalk minimizer, which I am forgetting the name of right now)
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The stage was squished, but were discrete sound images placements significantly to radically widened?
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I am not very technically oriented, but this was my experience with them:
It was very obvious that sounds were coming from each speaker, there was no good phantom center. Also, the music sounded constricted to emanating from between the speakers, which in my mind means the opposite of "holographic".
I think I also heard what you are describing though. Every instrument sounded smeared across a wider space than you would typically experience.
On the whole, it was not a very pleasant listening experience. I did like the bass impact though. I was excited to hear them, but I came away not even remotely understanding the appeal
What's being discussed is interesting to me, and more than a 3 decade pursuit. But in my listening experience "holographic" doesn't mean envelopment. Those are different things to me. The rare times I've heard an astounding 3D sonic image, it did not quite envelope me, it was out in front of me. But the sense of space as astonishingly real, concrete, like you'd hear live, or even more pronounced (you don't always notice it live). There is a solidity and and form to the sounds that is rarely reproduced. You could almost touch it.
I've only heard a few systems do this trick to an astonishing degree. The Altec A5 system that I built with Jean Hiraga did it well. The W.E. 15 4-way system we did at my theater demos, the DIY Walsh speakers heard at the Dayton Audio festival (I've written about those a few times) and a pair of L-Acoustic line arrays we installed in a school gym with atrocious acoustics. Those line arrays on "Money For Nothing" were jaw dropping - never heard that track so big and with such a complex space. Wow the drums! Superb. None of my own systems have really done the trick, tho I have come close with some. The room sure does help -as in large - but at the Dayton speaker contest everything was the same for dozens of speakers, room, electronics, music tracks. And yet those Walsh can tweeter towers did something no other speaker did that day. It's those things you remember, they stick with you.
But for me, enveloping sound is different, and discreet, from a "holographic" sonic space.
I've only heard a few systems do this trick to an astonishing degree. The Altec A5 system that I built with Jean Hiraga did it well. The W.E. 15 4-way system we did at my theater demos, the DIY Walsh speakers heard at the Dayton Audio festival (I've written about those a few times) and a pair of L-Acoustic line arrays we installed in a school gym with atrocious acoustics. Those line arrays on "Money For Nothing" were jaw dropping - never heard that track so big and with such a complex space. Wow the drums! Superb. None of my own systems have really done the trick, tho I have come close with some. The room sure does help -as in large - but at the Dayton speaker contest everything was the same for dozens of speakers, room, electronics, music tracks. And yet those Walsh can tweeter towers did something no other speaker did that day. It's those things you remember, they stick with you.
But for me, enveloping sound is different, and discreet, from a "holographic" sonic space.
Interesting comments. I used to own the old Ohm Walsh 2s, and although they were not great speakers, there was a magic to them that I haven't heard since. I will have to check out this DIY Walsh you mention
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I'll see what I can dig up. I wrote about them somewhere
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/new-cancan-speakers-by-leo-frank.171851/post-2271997
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/new-cancan-speakers-by-leo-frank.171851/post-2271997