3-Dimensional Soundstage

Getting speakers away from boundaries usually works very well at improving the soundstage.  Want to hear a good demo?  Take your speakers and put them in very large space or outside. 

When trying to improve your image, first reflection points are usually the first places to look.  Having speaker close to side walls will screw things up badly 95% of the time.   These first reflection points, (side wall boundaries or hard low ceilings), are usually the places to attack first with acoustic absorption- this reduces the reflections coming from them and enhances the ratio between direct vs reflected.  With the ideal wide dispersion speakers, were off axis sounds close to on axis, the image can get quite good.  If the off axis sounds a lot different from on axis, you are in trouble and will never get a good image. 

Some may not want to fix a highly reflective environment or an unbalanced environment.  In some of these cases, a narrower dispersion speaker works well in reducing these off-axis reflections (especially in mid and high end) and is another way to keep this ratio (direct vs reflected) high.   However, methods to restrict dispersion always result in similar increases in beaming, where direct HF gets so narrow, moving your head an inch completely changes the sound.  This is of course not as it is in real life, so seeking wide dispersion and a high direct vs reflected ratio is desired.  Its difficult to achieve.

Brad

Lone Mountain /ATC

This subject stresses the importance of Engineers & Mixing in the recording process.  The internet is such a great resource.  The Allmusic site will list the engineers on an album and then links that engineer to all the other albums they were part of.  If there is an album that you really enjoy the spatial aspect of you you can see other bands that use the same people and discover quite a lot of music that ways.

Yes imaging is manufactured but talented people can manipulate it in such a way that at times it better than live.  

Danager has it- I read here where people think the artist is the one who "builds" the sound, it's the engineer who builds it to the artists liking.  Like many of the Diana Krall records are Al Schmidt, and they all have a very familiar sound as its Al at Capitol Studio A over and over.  In most cases, artists hire the engineer they think is better at recording than they could ever hope to be.  And once that relationship is formed, it often becomes lifelong.  Engineering is art form- very much on par with mastering an instrument or being a great songwriter. 

Brad

@dhite71 

The depth in recording comes from the distance the mic is from the noise maker. Mic right up on the singer, the singer should pop out of the front of the speaker and vice verse. same with horizontal and height. 

     What edcyn, williewonka and erik_squires said, +1 each.

     Symmetry of your overall system (channel balance, both electronic and room acoustic), quality of components, purity of signal transfer (there are those cables, again) and time alignment of all speaker drivers, all are critical in the reproduction of a recorded sound space.

      While some depth is manufactured/manipulated by electronics; well engineered/mic'd live sound can and will present an original recording venue's depth of field.

      One of the main tricks in enjoying that: reproducing the event at a level close to the original recording's.

       Having said all that; whenever a question arises, regarding sound stage and imaging; I suggest the following tests, by which one may determine whether their system actually images, or reproduces a sound stage, as recorded:

      On the Chesky sampler/test CD; David explains in detail, his position on the stage and distance from the mics, as he strikes a tambourine(Depth Test). 

      The LEDR test tells what to expect, if your system performs well, before each segment.

         Online test: https://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_ledr.php

         Chesky CD: https://www.ebay.com/p/4046056409

          and, a good article: http://www.stereophile.com/features/772/

                                             Happy listening!