As a recording engineer I am blown away you would claim this. This is totally not true. Timing is true in the live music world, but for playback, most of our imaging with the exception of specific dual microphone setups rarely used, imaging is primarily volume, and phase does not play into it, not even one little bit as long as the phase response is consistent on each channel.
It is incredible that you make the same mistake about imaging than about the timbre concept not knowing that it is necessary to take into account the acoustical settings of the room to recreate the timbre "envelope" perception rightfully...
For imaging, the distance between 2 speakers must be optimal at a precise critical point, and their location in the room will also play a role, to create a center image ... Then this distance between the speakers would need some precise room acoustic settings to work optimally in timing and phase....
You cannot replace acoustic....By a better files or recording technology....With an A.I. we will be able but it is not the actual matter of this thread....
What we hears dont come from the speakers, it come from the speakers modified by the room acoustical settings.....All information in the world in a digital files or on some vinyl cannot be recreated in a bad room.... Even if all the information of the source could be perfect...And it is never neither perfect nor complete anyway....We need acoustic not only bits....
Imaging is not a phenomenon reducible entirely to recording technique it is also for the listener a live musical event, then an event where acoustic play his part....It is the result of the acoustic sum of the room and the system....It is the same conditions for the timbre experience recreation for the listener , it is the result of the sum of the room and the system...No recording technique can REPRODUCE perfectly the original timbre event...we need the settings of the room acoustic to recreate it optimally...
Ok i am not an engineer only an average audiophile....But it is my experience and experiments....