What would you say is THE MOST important factor to good imaging?


Experience has taught me that hardware is critical, but of course so are the room/treatments, the speakers themselves,and the recording's engineering/mastering quality.

But I would have to say that the biggest influence is the room, with speakers and mastering a close second...

What do you say?

Michael
mkh1099
catdoorman  seems to imply that mono recordings don’t image well or not at all.  I believe that is not true.  Sure they don’t throw instruments from side to side across the stage, but most of my mono recordings, especially vintage recordings present a big, rock solid believable image that I find very satisfying.  Julie London sounds like she is in the room.  In fact, my most expensive cartridge is mono to service a large mono collection.  Anyone else like this?
Hi,
best speaker position for start, synergy with power amp follows, when everything is optimised including cabling for signal & power things will be more in focus. If you want to dig further any decent room tratment will make them dissapear.
Big part is the recording. Other components having superior phase characteristics.
Since you have to get everything right , hard to say .
Try toe in every 1/ 8th inch over a week or 2 .