So one question has been whether there are listeners who can translate measurements accurately into sound impressions and vice versa.
Another, raised by this genelec-Neumann discussion, is whether each could be EQ’d so as to be indistinguishable from the other?
Yes, to me they are quite interesting questions, but there seems to be little interest as to the answers, save from a handful of people. Why the lack of inquisitiveness?
I'll add another question - what is an 'accurate' loudspeaker? If two well measuring speakers of a similar size (say the KH120 and 8030C) are placed within a room at the same point, yet produce a different sound when placed at the same position, which of the two is
more accurate?
There is talk of accuracy as a binary yes or no, in that up to a certain ill-defined point a speaker is inaccurate, after this point everything is just "accurate". Surely accuracy can be measured more finely than that? It is a very complicated matter, but if two well measuring loudspeakers are placed at the same position in the same room and produce different sound qualities, it follows logically that they cannot be equally accurate.
Truly equal accuracy would denote the
exact same sound qualities in any given space.
As no speaker is totally accurate, maybe discussion should be of greater and lesser inaccuracy in specific parameters (FR, distortion, directivity and so on). Given all the ways in which speakers are more or less
inaccurate, then it is likely that some will prefer certain balances of inaccuracies to others. A good example of this is Pearljam5000 finding the KH120 to be 'dark' and Genelec speakers more to his liking. Neither would be considered deficient from the graphs, but whatever inaccuracies he hears in the KH120, is more of a problem for him. For the next person, the opposite may be true and they will prefer Neumann to Genelec.
I don't think there is anything approaching an audio panacea, in that if you just pick an 'accurate enough' speaker, they will all be much of muchness or the listener should just adapt if they are displeased. This seems to me more likely to be a misunderstanding of the function measurements provide.
I'd wager that if the measurements are approached in a blind fashion, in that all speakers beyond the (ill defined) point of 'accurate', are good enough to please anyone, then you'd probably be better with some rules of thumb collected about preference (what directivity do you like? Do you prefer brighter or darker speakers and so on). You may sooner arrive at speakers you like the most this way.
I don't think the measurements are as blunt a tool as is suggested by some. There is lots of information held within - it is up to us, as individuals, to tease out the information that is most pertinent to our preferences and circumstances. This will differ depending on the individual.
Maybe measurements should be approached more as a map, rather than directions to a specific location.