That's the magic question!
And one that I often wonder about. If we're talking about acoustic instrument sources on a stage then it's easy to envision little colored lines as musicians, or sections of an orchestra. The application is then rather straight forward. Concert recording with strong FOH reinforcement is a strange case. How this applies to FOH reinforced music is not entirely clear, but raises some questions:
>Should I consider the FOH stacks as the outside limits of the 'orchestra angle'?
>Should I consider the width of the band on the stage as the 'orchestra angle'?
>Does it matter if the soundboard is mono or stereo?
>Do I want the outside-most colored lines (the sounds located at the outer edges of the recording angle) to come directly from the speakers? or a bit inside?
>What is the real significance of an uneven distribution of the sources across the stereo playback image?
>What is the real significance of an uneven distribution of the sources across the stereo playback image if nearly all the sound is coming from two points at the outside limits of the 'orchestra angle'? and if that sound has a large mono-content?