Speakers with imaging "Free of the box"

I second Exlibris - MBL 101E, or if your room won't allow them, either the 111 or 116. :)

I use my Nagaoka horns facing a rear wall approx 5' away from the wall, speakers 9' apart.I sit probably 7' behind the speakers. The sound is in the space between the speakers and the rear wall and sound does not appear come out from the speakers. Even If sit off axis It still has a good soundstage between the speakers.

I saw an earlier post claiming the new Legacy Focus HD pulls this off, that would be truely a feat for a large baffle speaker that up till now was one of the worst offenders for knowing exactly where the speaker was, I am not saying it is a bad speaker but you need a slim or atleast minimal baffle to pull this off.......Legacy offers neither and I highly doubt many would agree it can disapear. Gallo, Quad, Vandersteen, Coincident, Totem, and the countless other slim floorstanders and Monitors do this very well but large cabinet speakers just dont measure up in this regard....they have many other strengths to make you smile so it is a trade-off.

I would include my soundlab m2's that I now have and dunlavy sc3's that I sold to buy the m2's.

I think there is a very visual component to that as well. I am, let's say, mildly obsessed with detached soundscapes. The Tidal Contrivas seemed to fit that bill, even more so after having been equipped with Harmonix RF-999MT feet. Now, the Contrivas are large, surely they look elegant and are as slim as they can justifiably be (i.e. not a pencil-style speaker), but they are visually prominent.
So, as Tvad put it somewhere further upstream, was I getting the last 4%? After I gave up on surround some time ago, I had hooked up the TV in stereo mode, and there came my confirmation. The visual center was now, unavoidably, the screen. Sonically, things were happening in the entire room but even if I tried very hard, from where I was sitting I could not identify the large black sculptures that happened to be in the room as well as their source. For anyone with a large screen between the speakers, this may be the acid test.
Karel