ieasley, it's important, but probably not the most important feature. Lots of speakers have been built with that as a chief priority. Their performance was meh. Even Theil went out of business. Others have made the sole focus of their effort nearly ideal impulse response. Again, uninspiring results. The virtues you speak of are big priorities of mine. That's why I like my Focals. Their phase performance is decent, but there's better. They do imaging very well though.