Why do only US makers focus on time coherency?

It is my (admittedly very limited) understanding that electrostatics are coherent. I remember hearing some large Martin Logans at a dealer in the UK and being impressed that the soundstage was incredibly wide. However the imaging was very diffuse within the soundstage ... nowhere near as pinpoint as my spicas.

Of coure there are those that say you never get imaging so precise in real live performances ... I assume that they must only have one ear in the middle of their foreheads :-)

(Remember the joke about Davy Crockett's three ears ... left ear, right ear and wild front ear ?)

Sean - here is the link to the thread I started last week.
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1090433671&read&3&4&

Personally, I'm struggling with the choice between time and phase based designs and others such as Ohm, Dueval, Gallo and others that throw a much wider sweet spot at the listener. Those 360 degree despersion designs sound the same in almost any location within a room and at the same time are very accurate at imaging and have excellent dynamics. For those of us who don't have a 4 walled dedicated listening environment, it would appear a Walsh type design may be the best solution. But then again I'm not sold yet. I own Hales T-5's which are time and phase coherent and they have a pretty large sweet spot and sound damn good whether I'm standing in the kitchen or right on-axis.

If you were to close your eyes at a live concert, you'd be surprised at how hard it is to pinpoint the position of instruments/voices. With your eyes open, however, it's quite easy. (A lot of things are easier with your eyes open.) Good imaging at home helps to make up for the lack of visual cues.

Of course, good imaging is a function of a number of factors, including the recording and speaker-room interaction, as well as the listener's own sense of what it _should_ sound like. I'd be wary of any dogmatic claims that "X" type of speaker is the best for imaging.

To Seandtaylor99:
I've owned B&W DM604S2 for 3 years & I felt that these speakers imaged very well. I've heard many B&W speakers in DM series, N series & the now discontinued CDM series. Each time I thought that, if nothing else, the imaging was very good. Maybe your demands on imaging are far more stringent than mine??

To Dawgbyte:
Are you ever going to purchase a new set of speakers?? :-) I think that you have been posting on this forum for well over 1 year soliciting advice. Perhaps this has lead to analysis paralysis?? ;-)

Lastly, I 2nd what Bomarc has observed: We audiophiles put a lot of weight on imaging & maybe more than what is necessary 'cuz whenever I have been in a live concert, the imaging has never been pin-point especially if I bought "good seats". My criteria of a "good seat" is as close to the stage as possible. I'm sure that many others value the same. However, if the band or orchestra is so close to you, there is NO way in Hell that the imaging can be pin-point! It HAS to be diffuse as the sound just left the instruments & all the instruments across the stage just CANNOT combine that quickly to form a pin-point image. In fact, the further away I have sat (didn't get to Ticketmaster early enough to get that "good seat"!) the more pin-point the imaging has been. In fact, off lately, I have been appreciating the mid-hall presentation of music (whereas earlier I was almost always a front-row-center kind of guy).
So, maybe the Brits/Europeans are not that wrong in considering PRaT. They might be considering PRaT to give a wholeness to the music, which is very important for our resp. listening enjoyment.
Of course, IMHO. FWIW. YMMV.

LOL! I'm still doing research!! ;-) I'm well beyond analysis paralysis, I've officially got Jean Quary's disease... flip-floppatosis!

I'm actually going through a major speaker design theory shift right now. I have time/phase coherent speakers, so I'm now thinking about something along the lines of Ohm, Dueval, Gallo, ESS and a couple other 360 degree designs. In any event, I haven't heard anything yet that is urging me to unload my Hales.