Speaker size and soundstage

The only way that an instrument can appear to come from outside those boundaries is if enough early reflected sound comes back to the listening position from outside those boundaries moving the image to the outside. So by definition you have acoustic interference and distortion of the signal.

You miss the fact that the recording engineer placing his different TYPES of mic at different location INTERPRET the acoustical settings of the recording hall or room and TRANSLATE them in a specific atmosphere...

This atmosphere is RECREATED with plus or minus success in the acoustical settings of the listener room...

Then well controlled a listener room can recreate this atmosphere with an impression of spatiality encompassing the room itsef in some case....



The timing controls of reflections and their ratio early/late coming from not only the side but from the back and front is ONE of my KEY factor to control my imaging/soundstage and source width/ envelopment factors... The other KEY factor is diffusion/absorption balance with the Helmhotz resonators not only with passive material treatment....

What you call an acoustic "distortion", when controlled, is what i called a piano or an orchestra sound OUT of my speakers laterally or/ and in the front/back dimension in my room....It is related also for sure to the way the recording engineer make his acoustical choices ....But the sound ,save in bad recording, is  never  ONLY between the speakers....



Read this abstract second paragraph attentively:

2aAAS. A new physical measure for psychological evaluation of a soundfield: Front/back energy ratio as a measurefor
envelopment.M. Morimoto (Environmental Acoust.Lab.,Facultyof Eng.,KobeUniv., Rokko,Nada,Kobe,657Japan)and
K. Iida (Kobe Univ., Kobe,657 JapanandMatsushitaCommun.IndustrialCo., Ltd., Japan)
Broadeningis oneof the importantcharacteristics for the psychological evaluationof a soundfield.Severalinvestigations
indicatedthatbroadeningwascomprisedoftwoelemental senses, i.e.,auditorysourcewidth(spaciousness) andenvelopment [M.
Morimoto et al., Proc. 13th ICA, Belgrade2, 215-218 (1989); J. AcoustSoc.Jpn.46, 449-457 (1990); and Hidaka et al., J.
Acoust.Soc.Am. 92, 2469 (A) (1992)].


«They inferred that the degree of interaural cross correlation of late reflections correlated
with envelopment. This paper, however, shows the results of psychological experiments that envelopment is affected by the energy
ratio of reflections coming from the front of the listener to those coming from the back of the listener,even if the degree of
interaural cross correlation of the late reflections are equal.Namely,envelopment grows as the energyof the reflection coming
from the back of the listener increases. This result suggests the need to measure the ratio which has never been measure...»


Peace and love !

Electronics and detail matter but It’s mostly about the room acoustics and how the speakers use it relative to the listener. The sound radiation pattern and dispersion being a big factor.

All you need to do to prove the room and acoustics is the key is set your system up outside and see how big your soundstage is there regardless of recording.

Since the audio comes out of the speakers, many seem to think they control everything. This speaker forum has gotten downright comical; nobody is considering what fifty eleven dozen other things have to do with the audio?

Since the audio comes out of the speakers, many seem to think they control everything

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Some of us here do believe Spaekers reign as The Kings in our system,. Power = power. 
cd player = DAC
Phone gets a tad edge vs CDP, Not much. 
Speakers rule
 The Crown Jewels

I have a  4 inch clone on the Lowther/Fostex design. 
Its ok, nothing great, at a  miserable 91db. I us it for low mids-low highs,  
Although a  tiny 4 inch cone, this lil driver puts out huge massive soundstage that will blow you away in near field/small room acoustics. .
 = Size does not matter, 
db sensitivity is all that matters, 
db sens is the Holy Grail in speaker design. 
This lil fullrange will match the masssive 300 lb Wilson speakers in midrange soundstage. 
Size is not materail, Efficiency is all that matters. In mids/highs, Bass is different. 

In general the bigger the speakers the bigger the soundstage.  There are a few exceptions just like everything else in life.