G-teen, you fail to mention what music you are using to judge your system's depth capabilities. Both XLO and Chesky sell test CDs that have specific tracks for depth reproduction. As the above post detail, attention must be paid to room acoustics. However, it is also very possible that the music you are listening to has no depth. Only a small minority of popular music (both rock and classical)releases have any real sense of acoustic space. Even on records that were recorded using analog tape rely upon digital reverb units to supply depth. If your system is accurately reproducing the audio signals feed into it, then on most pop recordings there will be little depth. Personally, I love a deep soundscape and I have set up my speakers such that they are 18 feet from the rear wall. The resulting soundstage is very deep when the music contains depth information, PLUS it give a sense of depth to most other music. This is a distortion, but a pleasant distortion that works quite well on what is typically aggresively recorded pop/rock music. With audiophile type minimalist records the sound losses some of its immediacy. Nothing's perfect.
3-D Imaging: How??
I'm finally satisfied with my current system, except for one thing: it is absolutely 2 dimensional except with a few discs in which you get a little depth. I have: Rega Planet, CJ PV11L, McCormack DNA.5, B&W Nautilus 805s. Interconnects are TARA Labs Master Gen 2, speaker cable is Audioquest SA-40 (hyper pure silver) on top, CV-4 on bottom(the CV-4 actually compares well to other cables I have tried) All equipment sits on marble slabs that are "tip-toed" to the concrete below my carpet. I'm using an Isobar Surge protector on the CD and Preamp, with a Sonic Horizons Daybreak power cord directly into the wall on the amp. The room is about 12" by 13", but I have a totally dedicated room with a good nearfield setup. Why is my sound 2-D?? Thanks guys!!