Image depth

Furthermore, it seems to me that a few microphones, no matter where they are positioned during recording, cannot possibly duplicate a music waveform’s ampliture and phase exactly as it would occur at a live listener’s ears. So how can an accurate soundstage be created?

Thank you all for filling in a lot of holes in my understanding. I can remember my first experience of depth and soundstage size. It was in a small hotel room at a NY show years ago. The walls disappeared and there was a live orchestra stretching about 40 or 50 feet behind the speakers. Happened to be Swans speakers and Boulder electronics. I know that images can be behind or in front of the speakers, but didn’t have quite as clear a technical understanding of what made it happen.

What I’m getting from reading about recording techniques, is that godd recording techniques will fool the ear-brain location finding function to create an approximate aural image, but does not actually duplicate the exact sonic signature (amplitude, phase) that would impinge on the ears during a live performance. The exception is binaural recording, which puts the mikes on a simulated human head.