Is soundstage just a distortion?

Note that when you listen to your system 'out of phaase' that while the sound may extend beyond the sides of your speakers that it also looses center image specificity. This is not a 'distortion' as such coming from your system or the recording. Some folks refer to the sound as 'phasy' and in the old days some audio stores (when you had them) intentionally set up some speakers 'out of phase' knowing that it creates the impression of big soundstage which could impress a beginner who would buy, take the speakers home and set them up 'in phase' and then wonder what happened to the big sound he heard at the store.

When your system is 'in phase' you will maximize its ability to produce a holographic soundstage, only limited by its design and set-up.

Unless your recording has some out of phase sounds in it, and many do (often intentionally put there I think for its effect - you get good specificity and the out of phase information makes it appear huge), you should have no sounds appearing outside the space between your speakers (on the plane of the speakers).

FWIW, multichannel sound effects -artificial though they might be, can be had on the cheap by putting 2 small speakers on the rear side walls of your listening room powered by a seperate amp and attenuator out of phase with the main system. I believe they called the a Hafler system. Not all that good really, but a very interesting thing which can be addictive if you are not really all that fussy. The whole room seems more energizied and the sound stage collapses when you turn off the small rear speakers. There have been many, and some very expensive, audio components developed expanding on that simple Hafler thingie.

Hope that helps you understand this subject a bit more. BTW,

Very well said audiozen!, I agree whole heartly!,, cheers!

I love your response as well Newbee!, well said!,, LOL!, I cannot say eanything here, The words have already been taken from my mouth!,LOL!,, cheers!

I don't think my componenets are "poorly designed", as I use a rather nice Sim Audio CD player, and have an LP12/Ekos/Arkiv B turntable set up. I don't know whether the point of stereo is to spread the sound outside of between the speakers. I thought it was to create a sound stage as wide as the distance between the speakers, which of course was nothing when dealing with a single speaker in mono reproduction.

None the less, rarely do I get much of anything beyond the speakers unless the speakers are pretty much pointed straight ahead, but then I loose a solid center image.

Notably, the widest soundstage I can get at home sometimes seems to be through a pair of AKG 701's but I know some view their portrayal of soundstage as exeagerated.

Good gear alone does not assure a wide sound stage. Room acoustics, setup and listening position are big parts of the equation. Plus sound stage will vary naturally recording to recording.