3-Dimensional Soundstage

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!

btw: 

     The tests that I referenced are scientifically designed to eliminate all variables, as far as the source/recording.

      If your system reproduces the effects, as recorded and announced/described prior to play; your system will reproduce whatever soundstage and imaging your media contains.

      If not: well...

    To quote Bobby Owsinksi from his book:  The Mastering Engineer's Handbook, 4th Edition:

"The LEDR test is a substitute for about $30,000 to $40,000 worth of test equipment."

Having sold David Cheske a microphone or two, a major difference between his recordings and many other "traditional studio" recordings is that David usually chooses large spaces with large sources that [together] sound very good. In other words, if you were there and could hear the the real event, then the recording immediately after, you would say the recording did an excellent job of representing the real event. That’s Davids thing. A choir in a great hall, an orchestra in a famous venue, etc. He’s absolutely great at that kind of recording work and was a niche he sort of owned for a long time I think.

This large venue/large source recording is NOT the type of recording done in studios.  It is quite rare in the business, especially rock and roll. The size of a recording studio’s "live room" is often surprising small, unless it’s designed specially for orchestra (then it’s called a "scoring stage").  Live performance venues set up for live recording had a tremendous amount of work invested to set up for that.  The cabling alone is daunting; mic placement takes hours and hours of experimentation and is certainly not a set up and forget type of thing. Commercial recording studios are already set up, wired and ready to walk in and record as soon as you set up your guitar and amp. It’s fair to say a normal recording done in a normal studio live room would be multitracked out of necessity (one track at a time). Some studios would maybe have enough space for a small 5 pc chamber orchestra to play together- no more. The Pet Sounds room at East West is small- no way could an entire band set up in there and play at once. That’s what makes the recording so brilliant- Brian figured out the production to make it sound HUGE.

So the sound stage question is very much up to the engineer, the producer and the artist. It might vary with the record and the people so it could be one way on one record (Ive seen Bill Schnee record jazz ensembles all at once in the live room) and a completely different way on another record from the same artist or engineering team. And yes @rodman99999 is right- if "its" there, it was put there on purpose and your system has to do the heavy lifting of reproducing it. Not easy!

Brad