Is Sound Stage an artifact of recording?

Soundstage issues are something that I have struggled with and chased my whole audiophile life.  Equipment certainly is important.  But now that I have pretty darn good equipment, I believe that “soundstage” is a recording artifact.  Some music that I listen to has amazing soundstage, with the instruments located in place and seemingly dispersed on a “stage.”  Then, there are other recordings where the instruments are off to either side and not particularly well integrated with the center.  It is frustrating.  I want everything that I listen to to have that 3D soundstage, but alas, it seems like it has to be in the recording, and not my equipment.  Sure, better equipment has the ability to improve the soundstage, but if its not on the recording well, it is not going to magically be there on my equipment either.

@moto_man  you pretty well sum up the situation I think. Only Add that soundstage, while  enjoyable, should not really be thought  to be necessary to enjoy music since many  live performances really don’t feature any soundstage. In fact, I think I am going to experiment with mono listening for a while and see how I like it.

My answer is yes the sound stage is an artifact of the recording and no it isn't. Let me explain my recent experience. I recently switched speakers and both speakers soundstage changes based on the recording. That being said, recordings that  didn't extend outside of the speakers and/or lack spacing with my old speakers, now sound more open, are more immersive, and the same recordings now extends outside of the speakers.

      I think what you may be missing is, when music is recorded it is recorded using various microphones positioned in various locations and then mastered into a recording in such a way that often you can "sort of" pin point what you percieve is the location of the various instruments. Likely, you also then interpret this as a good recording because it is "realistic and allows you into the music" -so to speak. This is what most of us has been taught is the hallmark of good sound reproduction produced by quality electronics- i.e. sources, preamplifiers, amplifiers, speakers, etc. In a live concert -whether acoustic or electronic- you would rarely even attempt to locate the source of the various sounds you are hearing. Especially if the music is enjoyable it just doesn't matter nor do you care where the sound is coming from. Isn't it curious that what we are not even close to caring about in a live performance is the standard we use is judging recorded material in terms of realism, quality, etc.?

@pmiller115 

"I think what you may be missing is, when music is recorded it is recorded using various microphones positioned in various locations and then mastered into a recording in such a way that often you can "sort of" pin point what you percieve is the location of the various instruments."

Yeah, it's all actually done on a mixing board. There were early stereo classical recordings where the fewest possible microphones were used such as RCA Living Stereo, Mercury Living Presence and the like but the mic's were still fed to a mixing console where equalization was applied and small adjustments were made in real time to make up for deficiencies in placement and the acoustics of the venue they were recording in.

Early stereo jazz was often recorded in very small rooms in individual takes by such master's as Tom Dowd and Rudy Van Gelder where each instrument was very closely mic'd to take the room out of the equation as well as the sound from the instrumentalists standing next to each other. The soundstage and the placement of the players within it were completely created in the mixing board in real time. You couldn't simply hang microphones and get anything useful on the tape that would be meaningful in stereo to the person listening to the finished recording.