What is Imaging?

"So, it is just location and separation, not depth/realism?"

Sure it's depth and realism and dimensionality too. Sometimes you hear systems with great spacing between the performers laterally and back and forth, with quiet spaces between the instruments but the images just sound flat. I think it was HP who used to say "painted images on a painted sea." You want those images to have body and dimensionality as well. When you are sitting in your chair, you want to not only be able to point to that saxophone, but you want to be able to feel like you could get up and walk around it because it's so dimensional sounding. It's all part of imaging.

Location, isolation, and separation of instruments in space...depth is more soundstage(all instruments in a plane) related...front to back, lateral dispersion, etc...realism kinda falls in both camps...more so imaging...as in vivid presentation, 3d sound...im a soundstage man...I like a big, open, sound...with depth....even better...with instruments "spread out"

Phasecorrect,

IMO, imaging and sound stage go hand in hand. Once you put air around an image you create greater depth of sound stage.

Something audiophiles go crazy over and music lovers don't notice as much.

Something that has caused folks to buy speakers and then get absolutely sick of their distortion and other problems.

Something audiophiles can argue about and debate whether it really exists at a concert.

Something that one of the biggest speaker companies accomplishes, as the expense of higher distortion due to how they use the drivers, to get certain sounds float in the air, and distract them from the inherent problems with the speaker.

Something that keeps audiophiles' heads locked in a single position whole listening to the equipment (as opposed to music).

Those are some of the things that imaging is.