Speakers with imaging "Free of the box"

Maggies and Vandersteen's have imaging free of the box but, from my experience the image floats unnaturally above the floor, is bloated, and never sounds to scale. Furthermore in both these examples it is not a shapely defined image at that. IMHO it doesn't sound like real players on a real sound acoustic stage, sorry. Yet, I see why many folks love them. To me it is a trick, smoke and mirrors. I need something more convincing or just maybe, in thirty-five years I've just never heard either set up properly.

Happy Listening! (or imaging, as the case may be)

In my room, the Magnepan 1.6 and 3.6 worked rather well. Of course, neither are box speakers. Currently, my Merlin VSM-Ms (w/ Bam, of course) disappear surprisingly well. Last night, I listened to Brahams 1st Symph., the London Philharmonic and Klaus Tennstedt conducting and never heard the speakers once. They really vanished. Not all recordings works so well though it seems most do. There are still some recordings that are channel specific that I am reminded that there is a speaker. I've read some posts from guys with both Maggies and Merlins that claim to have had success regardless of the recording. I guess my room and speaker placement is not optimal to work for all recordings, but I am still impressed with the very deep Merlin soundstage and how well they image outside of the box.

The responses are interesting. I have heard many speaker that image exceptionally well. Mine included...and some mentioned above. Very few I have heard make the enclosures absolutely disappear. I suppose I'm looking for the last 4%.

I should have mentioned that I am primarily interested in box speakers, but the mention od electrostatics is appreciated.

I agree that Merlins disappear very, very well. Some Ohm Acoustics I recently heard totally disappeared, also.

Totem. ALL of them (Though I can only personally testify to Sttaf, Mani-2, and Winds)

Also, Von Schweikert VR4 genIII's

Kharma 3.2 CRM FEs.