Speakers with imaging "Free of the box"

04-20-07: Rgs92
I think the most interesting phenomenon I enjoy is when a musical entity is recorded hard left or right and still the sound seems to come from somewhere external to the drivers or the speaker itself.

That's along the lines of what I'm interested in. Not just an excellent stereo image, but an image that's "free of the box" even when the sound is panned hard left or hard right.

Surprised no one has mentioned the Ushers. I have a pair of 6381's which do a very nice disappearing act even in my compromised HT set-up and less then ideal listening room.

I've owned many speakers over the past 30 years and know of none that are a better value than the Usher 6 series (especially on the used market).

They will compete and any many cases, destroy many speakers costing "much" more. They are as transparent, if not more so, then the Maggie 1.6's I owned which were also very good in this area.

Totem Forest. With a little attention to setup they are gone!

as much the recording as the speaker.

I too am a sucker for the disappearing speaker that can project a large, defined and believable sound stage. Had you asked me this question a year ago, I would have resonded without doubt that the Totem Mani's can do this as well as anybody (within what I consider to be reasonable price points).

I have of course gone to all Totem speakers as a result of this. I am still a strong believer in Totem speakers and their ability to perform in this type of desired situation. In my mind, the Mani 2s and the Arro models are the best for this, but both are limited to the size of the room they can fill. Yes, I am selling some of these, but still am a very strong believer in this brand and will continue to support and recommend them for a long time.

I have since gone to the Von Schweikert VR4 jr (just right) speakers and feel that they present an excellent stage and do a great job of disappearing. While I have only set these up for about a week, I have been extremely impressed by them. These present a much bigger speaker feel and presentation while still being capable of presenting the questioned features of this thread.

If your budget is less limiting than mine, I would/could strongly recommend the Wilson Duettes. I listened to them two weeks ago in a largish room and they were terrific. At $11,000, in my opinion they may just be the bargain of the Wilson line-up. They were not bright (using Wilson's newest tweeter) and they couldn't hit the absolute bottom of the sound spectrum. They did not congest at high volumes (frequently this is a room issue as much as anything else). Buy these speakers - if you don't love them, then I will buy them from you (at the regular 50% off list price, of course).