[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Hmm, I guess you mean a room with lots of reflections. In that case, all bets are off. I suppose in reality nothing about the recorded sound really matters, since the playback's going to mess it all up anyway :-)

I do think that recordings of stereo guitar that are in phase have a quality that makes them stand out, at least for me. I know you're a fan of Pete Huttlinger's sound, for example. Pete's recordings are all about as in-phase as you can get without recording with a single mic. For me, at least, that's responsible for a big part of the appeal of his recorded sound. I also like Pierre Bensusan's sound, and he's about as out of phase as you can get, but it doesn't have that same tight cohesive thing that Pete and many others get.

and Pete records with a big wide spaced pair of mikes and I agree the recordings sound good. If coincident miking sounded good it would be a non-issue - record XY - but usually it does not sound that great comparatively.