Is it possible to have Good Imaging close to wall

Coherency among drivers matters for soundstage and imaging as well. Crossover can be a big factor there.

O_holter, it was certainly not my intension to criticise Mapman. Regarding
your comment about great speaker, it is a matter of setting up properly the
speakers in the room - the room will always "sing" along with any speakers
irrespectively whether it is a good or a bad speaker. We have all heard great
speakers sounding like crap.

Mapman, I am sorry if as suggested by O_holter, my post sounded like
criticism. I merely wanted to explain why you interpretation of what you have
read about secondary reflection is not correct. I was not the first one to point
this out. I have hoped that by making an analogy with the more known effects
induced by the room on the bass, it will be easier for people to follow my
argument. Obviously, as O_Holter message above indicates, I was wrong. I’ll
give it another try and I’ll be as succinct as possible.

Of course I agree/know that secondary reflections provide informations to our
brains about the surroundings - because of them we know immediately
whether we are in a small room or in a large room. Therefore, it is logical that
one needs secondary reflections to create a three-dimensional sound stage.
However, the key point is that on recordings that have a good sound-stage
the secondary reflections that give information to our brain about the venue
where the recording was made have been captured by the microphone during
the recording process. Consequently, my point is that in order to clearly hear
the secondary reflections that have occurred in the recording room/venue, we
need to minimise the reflections in our room. We talk about delicate details
which may be masked by the secondary reflections that occur in our rooms. I,
for one, am trying to hear the venue where the recording was made and not
my room.

Of course one can make use of the reflections in his/her room to
increase/decrease the soundstage to his/her liking. But, like in the case of
bass, the results may not always be beneficial/accurate. There is a reason why
so many MBL shows (organised by MBL personal) go wrong. I agree that when
properly set up MBL speakers can sound mesmerising (maybe not 100%
accurate but 100% accuracy is not my goal anyway.)

Perfect sound does not exist yet. Many demos at shows are not that good. Even those who made it are often not able to give a good or stunning demo.

At the end of every show the most demos were not that good. Those people come back next year. You keep a big % average or even poor level of audio equipment.

You have a lot more average imaging speakers than exeptional good imaging speakers. People still buy these average speakers.

Many customers are not good adviced in audio in general. Most will not have a stunning sound. It is that simple. At the end this is the truth!

People with less

When I was called the absolute sound of last year. One of the main reason was that I did use Audyssey Pro ( my way) Without it I would never had such a balanced and physical 3 dimensional stage.

The rooms are not that good at shows. The system solved a lot of the limitations overthere. It gives you an advantage.

I also demoed the roomcorrection on and off. The faces of people said everything. People were amazed by the difference. I also demoed Audyssey EQ and Volume on and off. This is the best way of letting people hear what it is and what it does. Hearing is believing.

In my experience speakers with a faster response have less acoustic limitations compared to those who are slower.

I owned both the B&W 802N and later the B&W 800 Signature. The last one is bigger and goes deeper. But I had less acoustic problems with the 800S. It was with the same amp, source, conditioner and cables.