Is soundstage DEPTH a myth?

@ czarivey - You are correct, it all begins with the quality of the original recording!

After a wonderful recording has been made then you have all the following issues that smear the image so you cannot perceive depth:

1. Nonlinearity and analog and digital converters
2. Phase shifting in crossovers
3. Distortion in amplifiers
4. Distortion due to limit physical limitations of speaker cones
5. Most of all the effects of your room

A way to fix this is using Dirac live. Dirac Live room correction software applies state-of-the-art, patented technology to analyze and digitally reduce room impact and enhance speaker performance, and optimizes the sound with respect to frequency and time. Dirac Live delivers a larger sweet spot, accurate staging, clarity, voice intelligibility and a deeper, tighter bass.

In the real world ---- not the make-believe world of the recording engineer [I can say this because I was one] --- musical instruments and the human voice have special characteristics depending on your proximity to them.  The degree of warmth that you perceive increases as you become closer to them.  It is that degree of warmth that subtly informs the listener as to the distance [thus the depth] from which the listener is located from the performer [vocalist or instrumentalist].  I once had the Concertmaster [Principal Violinist] of my orchestra [an earlier career] complain that no recording ever represented his conception of his own playing.  When I pointed out that his instrument was clamped between his chin and his collarbone and that HE heard characteristics of his instrument that NOONE else COULD hear because of the direct conduit to his ear, he nodded and agreed.  He was as close as one can get to the source of the music.   Most recordings are the recording engineer's idea of what you should hear and are compromised in ways that we can't imagine.  Orchestral music was hilariously interpreted by the engineers at Columbia Records when every solo instrument was represented in what I like to call a "Totem Pole" in that every solo instrument was dead center, one on top of the other !  With a twist of a "Pan" control, any input can be moved across the room and that vocalist who was sitting next to the pianist can quickly be moved next to the bass player.  Commercial albums in which the performers are actually contributing from different cities are magically mixed by the engineer into a hopefully agreeable combination of sound.  Some are obviously suspect and others are wonderful.  We haven't heard the "real thing" since 78RPM recordings were recorded in one take with zero editing.

@terraplane8bob  +1 couldn't agree more with your analysis.

When I moved my speakers (Vandersteen 2CE signatures) into the room, the  soundstage improved enormously: I can definitely hear that some instruments and some parts of the orchestra are in front of others.  I have had less luck with the Magnepan LRS speakers in my second system - but the room is unfriendly for the purpose.

+1 @terraplane8bob One little knob makes it all! But real or not real doesn’t really matter as long as it’s done with quality. A flat recording without any depth is without life and boring to listen to.