Which speaker is the master of IMAGING ????

Sean. Interesting comment on JML and focal drivers.Every JML speaker I have heard has a distinctive sonic signature that's recognizable throughout their entire speaker line.Funny... how other speakers employing that driver sound so much better.I have to concurr with TWL regarding single drivers as a "point source".Most single driver speakers have the ability to completely disappear in the room regardless of the size of the cabinet employed.The older Tannoys with their dual concentric drivers are a good example of that analogy.The music just floats in the room with nothing sticking to the speaker.An amazing illusion when you can make a box the size of a refridgerator disappear.

Ecclectique: I agree that JM's have a very specific "house sound" to them. Then again, i've always thought that there were two ways to design a product. One is to try and make it as "measurably accurate" as can be made at that given price point. The other is to "voice" a product for a specific sound that the designer likes or thinks sounds good. If the second approach is taken and the engineer / designer is consistent in these thoughts, their product will have a very distinct sound. Enter the JM Labs, etc.. type of products. As mentioned, i don't personally like that sound and i find it highly coloured.

The only other remaining way to design a product is to build something that works and throw it on the market. Manufacturers that do this are not hard to find as they leave plenty of evidence behind. A perfect example of this is Bose. When switching between various models in the product line, each speaker sounds different from the next. As such, which one is "accurate" and / or which one "sounds good" ???

I recently demonstrated this to a salesperson at Best Buy and it got them to thinking. By the time i left out of that store, the salesperson had run me around the entire audio department asking me about various products, how they worked, what my thoughts were on different manufacturers, various cable designs, etc... It was both enjoyable for me as finding someone in such a position that wants to learn is rare and enlightening for him, as he could now better understand some of the things that his ears had already told him years before. I turned him onto Audiogon and have the feeling he'll show up here sooner or later : )

As to your comments about point source speaker designs, i too am a fan of these. While they have their limitations ( that's why i have several very different systems ), they can do some things like no other speaker system. Sean
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While I really like the Legends, it's more for their tone than the soundstaging - not to take anything away from that.

Recently, Sufentanil and I auditioned a pair of Totem Arros that soundstaged like nobody's business. I was on the other side of the room(15 feet away), and basically behind them, and they were still imaging like a laser beam. I was floored, and I don't get floored so easy.

Joe: I agree that the Totem's also offer very good imaging / soundstaging. Then again, Vince knows how to work with baffle size, driver arrangement, etc.. in order to achieve this.

As to the comments i made about the Legend's, i only listened to them briefly under show conditions with an all Legend system powering them. The sound was VERY spacious, full-bodied and dynamic for such a small speaker. I'm sure that having a system that was built to work as a whole surely didn't hurt any : ) Sean
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Sean, I agree with you about Legend. I hope I didn't come off in any way as not being crazy about their speakers, as I do think they sound very good.

In my mind, the biggest crime on the flip side of what most of us complain about as far as the Stereophile Recommended Components List(grade inflation) is the Legend Starlet integrated amp.

As many around here know, I am not the biggest fan of the 6550 tube sound, but Legend really does something special with this amp. What gorgeous sound! I think it is probably the best 6550 sounding amplifier I might have ever heard.

Class C?!? If that amp is Class C then that whole list desparately needs to be rebalanced.