Is it possible to have Good Imaging close to wall

Mapman and Audiokinesis, thank you for the stimulating discussion.

I’ll start by citing Audiokinesis:

Reflections done right are beneficial from the
standpoint of envelopment and spaciousness and a sense of immersion,
timbre, clarity, and liveliness. They can preserve the three-dimensionality of
the recording, something that reflections done wrong will degrade.

Obviously, there are two extreme possibility: “Reflections done right” and
“reflections done wrong”.

Mapman talks about the benefits associated with the first one, i.e. “Reflections
done right”, while I warn people to be cautious as “reflections done wrong”
can be very detrimental. There is a reason why MBL speakers only on
occasions sound breathtaking while very often they are unable to image
properly or sound good. If MBL representatives (who are supposed to be
experts in setting up MBL speakers) often can’t do it, then one can not expect
the average audiophile or sell person to do it.

Consequently, my take is that if one wants to have a good sound-stage with
realistic sizes for the instrument and voices, than his/her best bet is to
minimise the first order reflections and create a symmetric listening
environment. I did not argue that one needs to completely suppress all
reflections (which is a task impossible to achieve in one’s room anyway). What
I argue is that beside altering the spectral balance, too many reflections are
also likely to give an unrealistic sound-stage, e.g. singer/voices having
unnatural sizes (30 inch or more). As such I feel it is better to minimise
reflections rather than to maximise them. There is a reason why recordings
are mixed in near-filed.

In the end it is a matter of preference (also because the “ideal"
reverberation time depends on the type of music one listens) and in this
regard me and Mapman have very different preferences. I own Avantgarde
horns (i.e. speakers that control the directivity of sound and thus minimise
reflections) whereas Mapman owns Ohm speakers (i.e. speakers which try to
maximise the reflections).

For what it is worth Mapman, I have a PhD in theoretical/computational
physics and I am doing research in university in the field of vibrational
spectroscopy for almost 15 years now.

I have never owned any speakers designed to go up against wall + maximize soundstage depth, which is what suffers the most usually when speakers are close to the wall.

OHM Walshes are designed to be able to go closer to walls than pure omnis, in order to make placement more viable for most. When set up right, soundstage depth is very good. The kinds of rooms most people are stuck with (unlike United Home Audio where I heard the benchmark mbl demo) and have to also live in are often a practical limitation and OHM is unique in its ability to create a large and reasonably deep detailed soundstage with placement closer to walls than possible with true omni, but not against.

Blue Circle had a model a few years back based on the OHM Walsh design that was designed to go flush against walls.

There are other speaker designers that tackle thepractical issues most have to deal with when locating speakers from teh perspective of soundstage and imaging. Larsen is one that was mentioned above that appears to have a good approach but I am not very familiar with. At a glance, they remind me a bit of Vandersteen which is quite well known.

BEfore teh current Walsh line, OHM offered several models using unconventional driver orientations to help reduce effects of early reflections that remind me of what Larsen appears to do. OHM often has refurbed versions of their older models with latest and greatest components installed for reasonable cost if of interest. Check out the catalog of older models on teh OHM site for more info on some of the FRS, CAM (very well received at the time with rotatable "egg" shaped tweeter mounted on top), or the OHM I, which John Strohbeen has cited as perhaps the best OHM ever in terms of pure output capabilities.

Nvp:
"minimise the first order reflections and create a symmetric listening environment."
I agree. But James Romeyn, co-designer of new Audiokinesis speakers, has suggested one should try a bit of offset from full symmetry, like 1.5 inch (moving the whole "axis" of the system a bit towards one of the side walls). My room is a bit asymmetrical anyway, so it may not be needed in my case. He also suggested my sub (which I have to place close to the wall) would sound best with 90 degrees phase, which turned out to be right.

I would love to have a pair of large, good horns. Avantegarde would do nicely. Not sure I would have the right room for those though, but I would love to have the chance.

THe best horn speaker demo I have ever heard was a pair of large full range custom horns GoTo drivers and large bass modules, similar to Avantegarde perhaps, at Capital audiofest a few years back. THat was one occasion where the mbl demo was not fully up to snuff. The GoTo's got my personal best sound of show award that day, FWIW. Soundstage and imaging was not to the scale of the benchmark mbl demo, but still excellent and all the rest was exhilarating as well, with excllent trademark horn transients and dynamics. I only got to listen for 20 minutes or so though.

Here is a photo of those Goto horns at Capital Audiofest a few years back that I heard.

This was a top 5 all time most impressive system demo for me I would say. Not to mention the speakers, setup room and venue were all simply gorgeous.