What exactly is PRaT???

Of course, the actual music does not really slow down, nor change in pitch, nor timing (unless stylus drag actually slows a turntable down!)..

But our perception of when the beat starts is affected by the arrival pattern in time of the first transients of a note.  If the leading edge is sharp, not smeared in time, your brain will snap into recognising the start of something special.  I am suggesting microseconds here!  Get this right, and you'll likely find your foot tapping ... 

... what smears out transients in time is poor driver alignment, cancellation between drivers around cross-over points, and interfering reflections from room surfaces.  These are all reduced if your speakers behave like point sources.

The type of music you're listening to matters in term of whether PRaT is relevant. I've listened to turntables that sound soft and somewhat indistinct rhythmically (typically high mass turntables), but their reproduction of the weight of orchestral music was stunningly good. For that music, I think pace and rhythm didn't matter much. On the other hand, jazz typically seems to benefit from equipment with some ability to reproduce pace and timing.

@yoyoyaya The Naim version of PRaT is easy to understand because it is focused on emphasizing the leading edge of notes while being harmonically lean. I've since found that the next level to PRaT involves music reproduction that has pace but is also harmonically full. Pass amplifiers fit that bill. I think @ghdprentice also mentioned that Audio Research is even better than Pass amplifiers at conveying both pace and tonal richness.

My short definition for PRaT: You can clearly hear how different voices and instruments are interacting together in music. This is particularly evident in jazz music as a vast generality.

FWIW, electrostatic speakers have PRaT in spades because of extremely lightweight of their moving elements. 

@immatthewj ....20' above it, 50 yards from the mudfield....slept through the night mostly, waking to heavy rain and the winds.  Nil damage.

We're on the 'wrong side of the tracks' from the Biltmore entry, west of the McDowell bridge.  Everything betwixt was a sheet of clay-colored mud water...a leaning high-tension power tower (since replaced), the entry mentioned shattered...

Power back in 2.5 weeks, water back a week later....it's nice not to have to flush with a 5 g. bucket anymore....(...surprises one how often you end up doing that...).

Feel extremely lucky, and somewhat shell-shocked in some ways...

Your city got torn into halves.  Literally.

Too many stories to tell here...

Thanks for asking. ;) J