@hifidream
I agree that highly directional speakers do certainly help with stereo imaging, but I couldn’t get them to do much in terms of crosstalk elimination. I’m using horn speakers right now in conjunction with crosstalk reduction and I’m getting very good results. I heard some big horns at this summer’s Pacific Audiofest that had the best stereo separation of anything at the show in my opinion. Others mentioned it too. Besides inter-aural crosstalk, early side wall reflections can seriously degrade the stereo presentation too, and it is truly amazing how good a standard 2 speaker system without crosstalk reduction can be at producing a wide, spacious sound field with clear separation between instruments when early reflections are properly addressed, either through directional speakers, room treatments, or a combination of both. With crosstalk reduction it can be even more amazing, but dealing with early reflections remains super important, otherwise the full benefits won’t come through. Horns or other directional speakers can make that easier. I’ve also found that the quality of the speakers and other components remains as important as ever. If the tonality is off or there is too much distortion, the sense of realistic space is severely compromised, although you can almost always still hear some benefit. Even when listening to my laptop speakers I can get some sense of spaciousness with crosstalk reduction that would otherwise not happen at all.