Could you explain this? I've heard comments like this about certain headphones for a long time, especially about the HD800. But, I can never understand this. The HD800s soundstage is huge comparative to other headphones, but ridiculously tiny "compared to the actual recorded source." If you were there at the session, the singer is not singing a millimeter away from your nose and the high hat is not riding a few inches from your ear and the bass is not thumping in your throat. The scale is vastly larger in every dimension. I'm always trying to get soundstage bigger even with the HD800s, which is why I've appreciated the advances in DSP.
I don't mean to disparage your opinion because I know the perspective is shared by probably more people than those who share mine. I think I kinda understand when I compare coherency to other phones, but when I think of live music I can never wrap my head around a headphone having an artificially inflated image. By the physics of a speaker abutting your ear, it's already artificially too small.