Image Height/Vertical Placement?

[Zuman]

I expect that I'm being ignorant here, but I don't understand much of the talk about image height among audiophiles.
My system's special strength is imaging, but largely in the areas of the left/center/right and near/mid-distance/far dimensions, and I don't notice a great deal of placement precision between my floor and six-ish feet above the floor, from where I'd expect most musical sounds to originate.
I listen to live music (amplified and unamplified) at least once a week most weeks, and I'm not particularly aware of vertical pinpointing of sound then, either.
I can only think of a few situations in which I'd expect to notice the height of a music source "in real life," and most of those are when I would be sitting very close to an unamplified performer (a violinist or cellist in my living room, for example); in most other cases the venue of the performance seems to "take over" as the dominant factor in placing sounds. I've also sat in a couple of recording studio control rooms, and in those cases I haven't seen microphone or mixing techniques deliberately focused on locking in the height of a source.
Can those of you with state-of-the-art systems really tell that a vocalist is 5'6" tall or that a tom might sit 14" lower than a hihat? Thanks!

 

[sbnx]

Can those of you with state-of-the-art systems really tell that a vocalist is 5'6" tall or that a tom might sit 14" lower than a hihat? Thanks!

Yes

 

[TonyW]

Yes, for me too. I don‘t know how the system does it. Singer‘s voices in some, not all recordings will be about 6‘ above the floor but their guitar is 3-4‘ above the floor. Some Chorale pieces have the choir voices going from 3‘ above the floor to the ceiling and extending beyond the side walls. Drums are at differing heights too and cymbls typically about 4‘ above the floor.

Not all recordings are that good. Some have the voice just 3-4‘ above the floor and their instrument at the same height. I can‘t remember which recording now but it was a live performance and the electric guitar amp/speaker was on the floor to the right and in the back. That was cool.

 

[Rexp]

Son of a Preacher Man from the Dusty in Memphis album is good for demonstrating imaging in all directions including height.