tuga
Legal Alien
A couple of years ago I attended a demo and heard a high hat 2m above and 1m to the left of the left speaker. Thinking it was comb filtering or some other weird effect I deliberately shook my ahead and repositioned myself. No, still there in exactly the same spot.
This is a particularly precisely located example of something that happens all the time IME.
That is an illusion, not imagination. Now if you're saying that an accurate illusion would have been the high hat in some other place, then I am willing to accept that, since the combination of recording acoustic, mic placement, speaker placing and listening room acoustic is likely to have unknown cumulative effect! Maybe another situation would have no effect, or a different effect, with the same recording. But if you say no height illusion can be conveyed by a stereo recording using speakers, you are wrong.
What is the mechanism that creates that supposed illusion which you're imagining?
Have you tried the https://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_ledr.php tests with your speakers and headphones?