Component contributions to “sound stage”

In my experience, synergy between amplifier, speaker, and the listening room play a dominant role recreating sound stage, granted it is captured and recorded. Of course, your playback system should be able to faithfully extract this information. Speaker placement (Hey, it is free!) is very important. Speakers placed too close to the back wall, or too far out can also distort the sound stage. Floor reflections as well as side wall reflections also alter the sound stage.

All components contribute. But, I guess speakers first, then preamp, and all the rest including interconnects and cables. You don’t want any weak links.

I have to agree when you feel you have a great system and soundstage it is a combination of the right pieces. I was very happy with my system and read on here about putting slugs in place of fuses. Someone mentioned the Swiss Digital fuse. I did some research and all the reviews were good and they had a money back no questions guarantee. I thought hard but went with the reviews and got some. Best money spent in a long time. The sound stage is unreal. Got a pair for some VTL 240 monoblocks I use. I was very relieved when they performed as advertised. I didn’t think I needed to do anything more and was concerned about damaging what I had. Thinking minimal difference at best but I was wrong. Far better. It is worth looking into. 

The room and everything in it. A few days ago, Juan of @blisshifi made a days visit where he moved the listening position, speaker placement, subwoofer phase/crossover frequency and volume and the result was that he transformed the sound without changing any components. The soundstage expanded in all dimensions, the speakers disappeared , imaging improved and tonality was better for all of the changes. My room is fairly well damped with nine 4” thick “bass traps”, corner traps, carpet and so on. I’m now curious as to what his system sounds like in that every component in his system has been carefully selected, starting with speakers that cost more than my 200mph car…ok 198mph and it is completely off the grid..ie. Battery powered.