Is it possible to have Good Imaging close to wall

Bo, the reality is that people are misinformed and ill advised everywhere not just
in audio.

People with less

Sounds like a great motto for all audiophiles. We all are missing something, e.g.
a deeper sound-stage, or a wider sound-stage, or deep bass, or money to buy
more equipment, most likely also some parts of the brain, etc. The list is pretty
pretty long.

You give me a good laugh Bo.

Reviewers love to praise a soundstage that extends well beyond the confines of the speakers. We all know that this expansion of the soundstage is lost when the speakers are too close to the side walls. The reasons are debatable, but in my view its an unfortunate consequence of having a small listening room.

"…in order to clearly hear the secondary reflections that have occurred in the recording room/venue, we need to minimize the reflections in our room."

On the other hand, I think most of us would agree that music sounds best when there are reflections.

How do we reconcile these two contradictory statements?

"How do we reconcile these two contradictory
statements?"

Personal preference and perspective.

THere are many favorite flavors of ice cream. Even more
beautiful women, no two of which look the same.

Psag, if with your eyes close you can tell when listening to music that you are in a small room, than that is because of the secondary reflections. If there will be no secondary reflections you will not be able to tell whether the room is large or small.

Note that there are also reports (also from reviewers) mentioning that the walls of a (small) room have simply disappeared and what was left was a beautiful large stage. This happens when the amount of secondary reflection is minimal and this is exactly the point that I am making.

No reflections at all is weird for the brain. However the brain does not care from where those reflections are coming (i.e. from our room or from the recording). The brain only associate spatial information to the music we are listening once it has detected secondary reflections.

Like Mapman was saying, it is a matter of taste and one has to play with speaker positioning and speaker types in order to determine what he/she prefers. Nothing is written in stones.