Best recordings to demonstrate soundstage?

Richard Thompson - Grizzly Man (soundtrack from the motion picture)

Flim and the BB's - Big Notes

Herbie Hancock/Watermelon Man, released on Sony/Columbia Jazz compilation CD is a great test track for soundstage precision. It's a great test track in many other aspects too and oddly - a fine piece to listen.
For ambience space try Judy Collins spectacular vocal-only Amazing Grace on the Whales and Nightingales CD.

I have a number of the recommended recordings, but I don't understand how studio recordings could demonstrate soundstage. Studio recordings have no real soundstage. If there is any, it's only an artificially simulated one. Tried the DiBango—great music, nothing special with the soundstage. Tried the Micky Hart—better for soundstage, good depth, but still nothing special. Put on Sting's Soul Cages. The soundstage is amazingly wide and consistently several feet beyond the speakers. Sometimes it even sounds like 5.1. The engineering is spectacular. What's going on?

Well, in the liner notes there is a reference to QSound, a virtual surround process that explains the amazing soundstage effects.

Go to: http://www.qsound.com

Other artists' recordings using QSound: http://www.qsound.com/spotlight/users/recording-artists.htm

Still, the best recommendation for demonstrating a real soundstage, rather than simulated, would be simply engineered orchestral music. Reference Recordings are a excellent label. There are others, but it's hit & miss.

02-25-08: Ojgalli
I have a number of the recommended recordings, but I don't understand how studio recordings could demonstrate soundstage. Studio recordings have no real soundstage. If there is any, it's only an artificially simulated one.

This is probably true with most pop music where each track has been recorded separately and then mixed together. If there's any sense of soundstage in these, it's been simulated as you say. But I'm not convinced that "studio recordings have no real soundstage." If the musicians are recorded with an open mic, why wouldn't there be a spatial sense?

Perhaps it's just my room and my set up, but I hear a spaciousness with the Mickey Hart and Ry Cooder cds. An Evening with Windham Hill Live is probably the best example in my list. You feel like you're sitting a few feet away from the musicians.

But you make a good point about orchestral music. It's probably going to give the most realistic experience--along with chamber music.