Is Sound Stage an artifact of recording?

      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.

Soundstage is carefully mixed into modern recordings by mixing engineers, often cooperating with the artist.  If it wasn't, you might have all the instruments and voices coming out of one speaker except for one coming out of the other speaker or some other equally unpleasant random placement of instruments.

Even mono or one microphone recordings are mixed by the placement of instruments or groups of instruments in relation to the microphone.

Mixing is not an artifact, it is an important part of the recording process.