Sound stage of studio recordings

@tomic601 ....I’d forgotten Ambisonics.....wonder what that’d go down with a surround Walsh or Ohm array.....🤔🙄😏😎

Oh, great....another tangent to go off on....Thanks, maybe....*L*

Patricia Barber Cafe Blue Unmastered?

It can vary with each recording and how the engineer mixed the recording. This can be especially true with older jazz and other recordings etc from the fifties and sixties when stereo recordings were just starting. Intentional separation of vocals and instruments were the norm to highlight the new format. The same was true for mono recordings that were later mixed to stereo. It really can be all over the map so @soix is correct in stating the benefit of preamp controls to correct some of these issues that can sometimes be annoying.

MikeLavigne +1. 

There is no 'live is, studio is, ... it is each individual track.

The more revealing your system is, the more you hear how good or bad the whole chain of recording, follow up engineering decisions. The space, proper mic type for each voice/instrument/position ....it begins with those fundamentals and goes thru an assembly line after that.

My friends and I often remark to each other, 'These guys knew what they were doing". Old recordings, new, current.

A compilation album has tracks from various engineers, they tell you a lot.

Many examples, this one instantly comes to mind

Ray Bryant DVD, Montreux 1977

This DVD, from a 1977 performance, Video not HD by any means. I started it, I thought, oh crap, it's gonna be lousy sound. Nope, it's a delight.

Huge Bosendorfer piano, 5 mics, and after a few songs, they sneak on stage and change Ray's vocal mic. "These guys knew what they were doing".