Where should the vocal image be?

Let the recording and your system determine the near 'n far of the vocal image. It's part of the fun.

behind the speaker plane. :)

but this is extremely recording dependent.

All bets are off, unless you have your speakers set up optimally for your room and your listening position. Once your speaker and listening position are optimized, I think the recording choices made by the recording/mastering engineers is most responsible for "where" the vocals are placed.

I've got recordings that have to vocals in front of the plane of the speakers, in line with the plane of the speakers, and back from the plane of the speakers. However, I don't recall any that have the vocals right up in my face.

I spent quite a bit of time on my speaker placement and the overall sound quality, balance/bias, imaging, soundstage, etc., improved pretty dramatically from the effort.

 

but what piece of equipment and it could include speakers, is responsible for the imaging / soundstage

I would venture to say it would be the speakers. Then followed by the recordings.

Okay so a lot going on here. First you need two speakers. Not one. Not three. Two. Then they must be equidistant and symmetrical, or no imaging. Then if you want image focus and depth they need to be toed in quite a bit. The more toe in the deeper the stage.

Okay now you have set the stage, so to speak, for the rest. Even the very best speakers can only put out what they get in, so all your other components need to be capable of depth of stage.

Now assuming you got all that in place then it all depends on the recording. Last night I put on Sting The Dream of the Blue Turtles because my wife likes Sting. Only she didn’t like this one, not at all. Come to find it is because his voice is so far back. Plus this one sounds like he is in some kind of cavern or something. She couldn’t stand it. So I put on Ten Summoners Tales which is Sting and recorded very similar but not quite so far back. Like Turtles he is 7 ft back, Tales only 4-5 feet. Still she was complaining asking why he isn’t right in front of us like Mark Knopfler Brothers in Arms.

So there is a huge range, that once your system is up to snuff is entirely, completely, and all the way 100% determined by the recording.

But the system has to be there. A lot of them will present everything in your face, or way way back, or flat, or anywhere in between. The better the system the more it depends on the source material.

All good presentations I have heard have an image on or behind the speaker plane. With my system most recording appear 5-10ft behind the speakers to simulate depth of the soundstage.