Almost ten years since this review was first published, I thought I'd add a few observations of my own as a long term owner.
As Steve noted, the PSB Imagine Mini is a premium bookshelf speaker, both in performance and fit and finish. When available, they sat at the top end of the price range for similar products. Right now in 2021, the last few new pairs are still available discounted as clearance items. That's a long run which suggests performance has held up well against newer products.
While Steve talks about nearfield applications, I've bought these specifically for a wall mounted application in a small room. These speakers were available with an adjustable wall mounting bracket as well as dedicated floor stands, at which point the oft mentioned recessed speaker connections make perfect sense. I have in wall cabling and never found the recessed connections to be an issue as it happens. It's a well thought out solution matched to the available mounting options, but I can see how it may have confused some over the years who never experienced them in conjunction with the wall brackets or floor stands.
I have them positioned high on the wall pointing down. I presume the wall mount locates the speaker appropriately from the wall for decent bass reproduction. Over the years reviewers have commented on weak bass performance when they have been miles from the wall. On the wall brackets, they are very close to the wall and sound great.
I won't dwell on the minutae of reproduction quality other than to say that combined with a PSB Subseries 200, they have provided many hours of listening pleasure. What has changed over the years is the source, and subsequent source upgrades have revealed further depths of performance.
Right now, there is a NAD M10 attached which lights them up nicely. With Dirac active, they vanish and sound comes from everywhere. Its a neat trick. The sound is detailed and full, never strained even at high listening levels. SPL of 90db is loud enough and the volume control has been limited so that the speakers cannot be accidentally vaporised should there be a slip of the finger given the M10 is operated completely by a mobile device of some sort. At that volume the speakers are moving plenty of air, but sound effortless. Everything appears to be right there in the room rather than being poured from a box. The sound becomes fuller rather than louder, similar to the Maggies owned at another time. AC/DC sound like they should and at the other end of the spectrum, nuances of well recorded orchestral music are all present.
With the M10 crossover set to 80 Hz, the sub provides punch you can feel, but obviously these speakers are not going to reproduce dynamics in a way that larger multi driver speakers can. That's about the only trade off I can identify and at the price and size, that's fair enough. In this small room application they have provided years of enjoyment and I suspect will continue to do so long into the future.
Our system is dubbed "The Audio Tardis" which says it all.