Is soundstage DEPTH a myth?

It's not real its an illusion generated by your mind. If I play back a stereo recording in mono it doesn't have much depth though the mind tries to do so. Stereo is designed to make the mind imagine an image by using 2 spaced loudspeakers ea fed a bit differently. TV also doesn't have a moving image your mind thinks it does as it just looks at nonmoving still images flashed at it. Human senses are easily fooled. Are holograms real no? Its illusion.

soundstaging and in particular, perceived depth of stage is certainly there in spades when a terrific live recording is played on a good, well placed system... i think most here agree with this

but i will add that many multi-track studio mixes, say, of pop music, can also have pretty decent depth if the recording engineer does his job well... this is 'artificial depth' that is engineered into the music, rather than capturing and reproducing the real depth in the actual performance venue, but i think this works pretty darned well, is pretty convincing too, when done expertly

If the soundstage is indeed real then why do we need 2 speakers wouldn't 1 be enough? Why does this real soundstage disappear when not seated centered? If it's so real wouldn't it just always be there?

JohnK

You can say that everything audio is not real, that's not the point of this discussion.

Soundstage depth perception is completely real and best replicated with stereo mic pair recordings due to the phase / time arrival differences.

Our Binaural hearing is by design to locate sounds and judge their position and depth! 

However I've come across many individuals who seem to have little to no function in this area and cannot hear phase differences, perhaps you fit in the category?

And that's the science

I've had clients who can't even hear what 180 degrees out of phase is !