But the OP specifically said "they lost most of their imaging." Well, of course they did! Anything else would defy the laws of physics. No amount of speaker design, no "voice" can change the fact the sound coming off the speaker hitting a flat surface so near by is gonna ruin the imaging. Cabinet, bookshelf, wall, does not matter.. All the same as far as the soundwave goes.
Really good imaging requires speakers being placed about 3 feet away because reflected sounds arriving within about a 3 to 5 millisecond window affect our ability to localize, and sound travels about one foot per millisecond. So anything you can do to eliminate or attenuate reflections within the first few feet of the speaker will have an inordinate effect on imaging.
Sorry my friend @millercarbon but this is not true. I used to believe the same as you about speaker placement and imaging, but it really depends on how the speaker is designed. And Sjofn “the clue” uses the wall boundaries as well as floor and ceiling to work with its design rather than against it, and it works. I didn’t believe it either until I heard it, but there was a wonderful and deep 3D soundstage accompanied by a clean level of deep bass I’ve never heard from speakers this size (or price) before. I imagine the Von Schweikert Vortex speakers also manage to overcome these “barriers” in their own way although I’ve never heard them.
While you are correct that with traditional speaker designs getting speakers away from walls is crucial to really open up a 3D stage, but as with most things in audio there’s more than one way to skin a cat.