The best "imaging" speakers?

Trcnetmsncom,

I'm not going to say "to each their own" is a silly concept.

However, I will definitely say that once an audiophile becomes more experienced, and/or morphs into more of a 'music lover', the qualities I touched upon will be *far* more important than the "oh wow" special-effects stuff.

'Imaging' simply is not high on the list of what makes a speaker faithfully reproduce music.

I'm sorry for derailing the thread - I'll stop now.

Paulfolbrecht - Imaging allows us to enter the invisible and participate in musical event - without it we could just play mono (much cheaper - one monoblock, one speaker etc).

Audiophiles want it all and we want it now!

For both imaging and "you are there," I haven't heard anything to beat Wilson Maxx 3's or Alexandrias powered by massive tube amps. In one case it was a VTL signal chain including Siefried Reference monoblocks and the other (I heard just the night before last) was powered by Audio Research. Cabling in both cases was Transparent Audio's best or near-best.

The level of resolution on these rigs is such that--even with multi-thousand-dollar digital sources, you can easily hear the improvement when upgrading to 24-bit/88.4 or 96Khz, and from there to an analog source.

Another one that sounded very good was an all-Ayre chain powering a pair of Magnepan 20.1s augmented by a pair of JL 2x12 powered subs. It wasn't quite as fast and dynamic as the Wilsons, but it was very linear, very musical, threw a great soundstage, and Ayre's own in-development turntable provided great-sounding source material. It definitely elevated the experience over both redbook and 24/88.2 digital.

Two+ years ago I heard a SME 30 turntable going through an all-VTL rig powering a pair of Alexandrias and the experience *still* haunts me.

Depends on the room! I aggree with Chadnliz Vandersteen are some of the best also Magnapans. Here is my theory, using Vandersteen as a example, there are others. Vandersteens have pots and crossovers to tune each speaker to the pre amp and room acustics. Once each speaker sound the same and matches the room the sound blends together and the speakers disappear also they use a design where the speakers are usally almost supended in the enclosures to avoid directional sound. Now there are some good processors out, that sounds like a big no no. I use to think that way till I got feedback from people that used them they adjust each speakers to the room and does what vandersteen does with the little pots on the back of the speakers electronically with a microphone. This could hurt something else in the sound path or coudl really help if the speaker/rooms needs a little help intergrating.