[...] Omni’s cannot be beat for their large sweet spot and ability to image coherently regardless of listening positioning. If a live like presentation even on studio and/or mono recordings and coherent imaging most anywhere in the room does not appeal, probably no good reason to consider omnis.
A "live like presentation" and "... coherent imaging most anywhere in the room" would definitely appeal to me, but I find fault in equating omnis like the GP into being "live like" in presentation simply from those traits mentioned. They may be aspects of live-like sound, but very little of what I heard from the GP HRS-120 made me think of a sound character in that ballgame. For that to happen there’d have to be a very different magnitude of dynamics, scale and ease (not to mention overall coherency and presence/immediacy, certainly through the central midrange), and to accommodate this I’d wager the GP’s would have benefitted from a smaller size listening room compared to where I heard them, though I’m certain it would only have helped them so much. It’s not that I can’t appreciate an omni-presentation that relies heavily on the contribution of a given room’s acoustics/boundaries as "opposed" to a directivity-laden "through the window" type of sound that involves reflections to a lesser degree from the likes of horns, but if GP is largely representative of omni sound it’s too malnourished a sonic meal to my taste.
(The only GP I’ve heard was last November at CAF. The sound was spot on. Very neutral tonal balance and somewhat laid back perhaps but not overtly so.) I believe they were using good qualiy (Veritas?) Class D amps (as I do with my OHMs) which surely imparted much of the tonality. Fans of warm sounding tube amps with lush midrange (not me I tend to prefer accuracy) would not be impressed in that regard.
I can’t buy into the "[quality] tube amp not equaling neutrality/accuracy" dichotomy; on the contrary, I’d say. The harmonic structure and texture, liquidity, tonality, sheer dynamic explosiveness/uninhibited-ness and natural fullness of good, lower wattage SET’s (preferably through higher efficiency speakers) to my ears takes the price towards a natural (I favor this term over "neutrality"), live-like presentation compared to many if not most solid state offerings with typically less efficient speakers. Good SET’s seem to lower my "reproduction"-guard and more into something that is simply there, with an element of simplicity or wholeness that downplays any dissecting tendencies of what’s heard. To me at least this is very much akin to witnessing an acoustic live event.