Speaker positioning and center image depth

Why do you limit your observations to depth of center image? Why not depth of image at the extreme left and right? That's important too, no? What about basic speaker positioning issue of near field or distant/mid range. That too makes a big difference, no?

IMHO while speaker positioning, i.e. distance from walls and associated nulls, nodes, and reflections and their treatment are important, the most important ones are 1) a recording with the appropriate information, 2) the source electronics ability to pass this information through with minimal deviation from the recording, 3) and the electronics that drive the speakers (amp and pre amp) which have the ability to reproduce the most important frequencies to the reproduction of imaging with out distortion or emphasis. 

If you have THE recording, source, electronics and speakers then, and IMHO only then, can your worry too much about room set up IF your goal is to optimize imaging.

FWIW I've seen too many folks try to obtain some idealized imaging without even having a source/recording which can get them there (and there really are not that many extant). If you want to chase this holy grail down get "Depth of Image" by Opus 3 (long OOP its on a CD but the LP is better by far).

There are really two issues here.

1. How wide and deep a soundstage is, created by a given pair of speakers and their setup.

2. Where the soundstage starts in relation to the plane of the drivers; in my experience some speakers/setups will throw a soundstage starting in front of that plane, some start at that plane, and a few even start behind that plane and extend well back.

Consequently, for example, an "in your face" presentation may be a combination of a tipped up frequency response and a "forward" soundstage.

@newbee Thanks for the reference track, I’ll look into it. 

I agree it’s not just about the center image, I guess I was just trying to make a simplified point vs trying to generalize the relationship between positioning and the depth of the entire stage, which is more complicated. And I agree that all aspects of positioning and treatment are important, especially in relation to the listener’s sitting chair as some speakers are better for near field vs from farther away. My point was really revolving around how people attribute a speaker as one with a forward or deep soundstage, but in reality, those attributes have much to deal with how a speaker is set up vs the speaker itself.

I’ve had a pair of KEF Reference 5’s since last September and I’m still futzing with them.  Currently they are 24” away from the front wall, 46” from the side walls, 7’6” apart (center to center) 8’ from my listening position and toed in 7.5°. 
Most of what I listen to is lite Jazz like Bill Evans, Hank Mobley, Art Farmer, Pepper, Blakey.  Today I listened to 3 albums by Dominique Fils-Aime. She is kind of a modern version of Sade. Anyway, there was little depth, but the sound was superb.

If you are interested, check out The album “Nameless” and the song “Birds”.

@curiousjim Birds is one of my reference tracks. The imaging of the clapping / percussion is incredible, as is the split of the vocals on the stage. That is a great track to test with as it is perfect for demonstrating what I am getting at above. There is a thin margin in the rooms I’ve set up where the clapping / percussion is almost directly to the sides, and the center image is still spot on. Otherwise in sub-optimal setups you lose clarity in one or the other.