It all depends on your mix of priorities. Imaging and soundstaging are important to me. I also happen to like speakers that are a little more laid back, in the sense that the soundstage starts at or behind the plane of the drivers and extends back from there a good way. Timbral accuracy obviously important, though I err slightly to the warm/forgiving side--many modern speakers I find unforgiving. Then there's bass extension. Ideally I want a little more than the Twenty.24's give me--hence my regret re. the '26's.
I've heard this about first-orders before, but I believe it's part of an overall brew/cocktail of ingredients, so one can't just take that one feature and use it as a decisive or absolute criterion to separate the sheep from the goats (or the "good" speakers from the others).
