Andrew Marshall’s original Imager design was quite straightforward: a circular neoprene ring that surrounded the tweeter and absorbed energy that would otherwise have been radiated along the speaker baffle and re-radiated milliseconds later at the listener when it reached the edge. The design was sound, and 5000 pairs were sold with not one consumer complaint or return, and a plethora of praise for the improvements wrought with normal direct radiating box speaker designs. Speakers just imaged better, with more depth! (At right you’ll see the new, oval Imager)

     However, it was pointed out by a major Canadian speaker designer that reflections off the inside of the Neoprene ring caused slight peaks and dips in frequency response (2 dB or less) around 10 kHz. The solution? Make the new Imagers oval in shape, so that the frequency of these minor reflections would be staggered between 8 and 12 kHz, and therefore unmeasurable in their interaction with the directly radiated sound of the tweeter

      That’s just what we did, made them oval in shape, but there’s more! Marshall researched the available Neoprene compounds, and found one that was softer and more absorptive in the audio frequency range, and therefore did not reflect as much energy. The result is a much improved version of our famous Imagers: Imagers II. You can have the wider part of the oval at the sides, or top, it doesn’t matter. Self-adhesive, Imagers II are easy to fit to your speakers, and need never be removed (if you do decide to remove them the special adhesive WILL NOT leave any kind of residue on your speakers). They’ll deepen the soundstage and control side-wall reflections while also eliminating baffle diffraction.

     Bafflegab? Hey, it’s good physics: the more your speakers are a point source, the better they’ll image. And that’s the truth! Imagers II are priced at $9.99 a set, but if you order 2 sets, they’re only $15, and 3 sets (which should cover a home theatre system with a spare) are only $19.95.

Imagers: a tweak that works…5000 happy audiophile customers can’t be wrong!