Is soundstage just a distortion?

My London Decca cartridge on OTOH does staging I would describe as 'other worldly' in comparison to any other cartridge or digital I've ever heard. I used to think it was artificial but I can't see a cartridge having the ability to rearrange the sound stage. The only conclusion I can come to is that analog does in fact provide a much more defined and accurate as engineered sound stage. This has been my overall experience.

I agree with Csontos - analog recording recreates soundstaging quite a bit better than digital recording does. This is one of the main reasons why so many professional musicians still prefer it, and wish that it was still done. As much as digital recording has improved, it is still in the end a mix of way too many different mikes, and the end result, even though it can be altered and controlled and edited so much more easily, is not as natural sounding.

If one cartridge can produce an other worldly soundstage compared to another, then obviuosly a cartridge can rearrange the soundstage. It is also not clear what conclusions can be drawn about analog versus digital.

What exactly do people mean when they say a better soundstage?

For me 'better' is simply more defined. The Decca cartridges have the ability to produce very sharply defined point source imaging. Should this be considered artificial because it does not follow general design convention? 30 years ago I bought an Audio Quest cartridge for $75.00 that had no mags or coils but only a tiny circuit board to which the cantilever was attached. This thing was rejected by the audio community as an inferior design. Funny thing is it performed similar to the Decca and one of the best I've ever heard. Ime, cartridges in general produce a relatively vague sound stage. The very reason why their are so many different camps trying to capture a semblance of reality in their systems. Before digital hit the scene, there was not the sharp division between the tube guys and the rest. Interesting.

Csontos, could you say the same thing about the difference between tubed and solid state stuff? Think, coupling digital and ss could be a perfect combination for 'definition', 'resolution', etc. Or not. :-)