Are you troubled by the imaging of a symphony orchestra?

One of the reasons I have wheels on my heavy speakers is so I can adjust toe-in, for single listener, for wider center for 2 listeners, content with too much separation, or content with not enough separation.

I also chose a cartridge with both wide channel separation and tight channel balance, a big part of imaging success.

https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/cartridges/line-series/at33-series/at33ptg-2

Next, you need the tools and skills to align the cartridge. Once physical alignments are correct, anti-skate is critical to imaging.

I use both the CD and Vinyl versions of this to first tweak my system balance with the CD, then twerk my anti-skate on LP version

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_Night_in_San_Francisco

side 2, tracks 2 and 3: CD proves system balance is correct, then LP, adjust anti-skate to get the imaging of the 3 guitarists right.

Then, it's about content with great: recording techniques, engineering, mixing, pressing ... Many awesome recordings are out there, but you cannot buy any '1812' you need to do some research, find the ones done right.

Since I can get carried away with Bach, Brahms, Haydn etc in my car with about 20$ worth of speakers not something I worry about .

If you go to symphonies and "sit close," then you are certainly aware that that symphony ('sound-stage'?) will be completely different when you sit somewhere else.  (e.g., as in Disney--you can sit 'close' in front, behind [for 1/10 the price], close on the side, close on the side balcony, first row, tenth row).  Since the instrument location will be different from each one of those seats, there is no possible way a recording can "correctly" image that.

Harry Pearson once wrote that correct imaging is more important on recordings than in person, as with recordings you have no visual clues.

That being said, IMO there is no reason not to have pretty perfect left to right imaging of instruments. I think the only thing that can get in the way of that are loudspeaker resonances which may be present more than some think. Front to back is a different matter as that is where the recording art is (or is not) at its finest. Much multi-miking, for example, erases front to back imaging. The 3 mike techniques used in the early days by Everest, Mercury, RCA and Decca probably did it best. Credit Everest’s Bert Whyte for its early development.

A small exception is that in the earliest stereo days, notably at RCA, they recorded a full orchestra with only two microphones (before the stereo disk and initially headed for open reel tape) and a resolving system may reveal the so-called hole in the middle. And so they added the third microphone.

Orchestras, of course may have different seating arrangements even for different pieces. Split L-R violins, sometimes cellos in front on right, sometimes violas. Basses sometimes at extreme left, etc. Percussion can be anywhere.

PS: The Mercury Records engineer was C. Robert "Bob" Fine, not Donald.