The most important factor in soundstage imaging

A huge congrats to you Dave! I wanted so much to buy the same pair that you have, I really like the carbon black. I just couldn’t swing it. Not all bad news though since I got a pretty good deal on a pair of DSP8000’s and tbh in this stubborn room I’m probably better off. I would love to come over and hear your system sometime. Will you be inviting the crew?

Any decent box speaker can image well...it’s getting the energy of the music to hit you with believability! I need substance, not ghosts :-)

The most important factor in soundstage imaging - is having 2 ears. Still nothing wrong with mono, sound staging is all in your head anyway. Just get one massive speaker and you have a real massive soundstage. Or buy pairs of wee weak chinless direct radators and they can put up a fake one. I would much prefer 1 large loudspeaker in mono over conventional audiophile offering in stereo. To me this sounds more like real music in a real space than standard audiophile fair.

Johnk, I have 2 huge mono speakers for sale if you’re looking.

Excellent info everyone. I would say that the speakers (and placement) are the most important to imaging and staging and then the room (physical dimensions and treatment) and equipment moving backwards of importance and impact from the speakers. . . Of course none of this happens if the recording isn’t made well at a high bit depth with minimal processing and or brick wall filtered etc.

I am a firm believer that an active set up is the best way to deal with room nodes with multiple subwoofers that can counteract the inevitable issues that arise when playing music full range.

After all that, looking at adding BACCH as the pinnacle cherry on top to my system. Awesome innovation if you haven’t looked it up, applying all the science quoted above!