Any serious speaker company should provide themselves at least horizontal and vertical directivity measurements up on request. Avoiding doing that, should be enough to know they probably aren't serious or have something to hide.
Doing measurements for them is both going to be practically very difficult and expensive. Most likely you will end up only measuring mostly small and low cost speakers with some exceptions. IMO it's better to call upon measurements from the companies and let the public know if they don't provide it.
It should also contain a measurement with the standard IEC263. A standard that we have had since the early 80s but hardly anyone are using! Most of the on-axis measurements and polars shown are way too coarse and look a lot better than what they really are. I'm disappointed that no one are calling this out but instead gives praise to the companies showing these measurements.
While I don't disagree with you, I find it unlikely that most companies would provide measurements on request, regardless of how the speaker performs - I've tried asking a few times. As Krunok said, Harman doesn't even provide measurements on most of their speakers, and I've seen plenty of speakers that measure well in independent testing whose manufacturers don't provide much data. By only sharing the speakers from more forthright manufacturers, ASR would likely miss out on a sizeable swath of good speakers.
I do wonder why manufacturers are so reticient to share measurements though. I don't know whether it's the engineers, marketing, or other higher ups making the decisions about not posting them, but I imagine these companies don't provide measurements on purpose rather than out of laziness or something to hide. My guess is it's because they don't want to deal with always having to explain why a speaker measures a certain way or have people read too much into the data. I sometimes feel people interpret certain measurements as gospel without knowing the full reasoning behind a design, such as if a speaker is designed with a certain use or positioning in mind.
I also remember when two Harman speakers were pitted against one another in a blind test - the Revel Salon2 vs the JBL M2. Even though I thought the Spinorama data for the M2 looked "prettier," the Salon2 ended up winning the blind test.
Not saying this is a great excuse - I don't think that simply omitting the measurements is better - but my point is that I don't think ASR can rely on manufacturers providing extensive data, even for speakers that do measure well.
In fact, part of the reason I think Amir
should measure speakers if he's up to it is that it might just encourage manufacturers to be more open about sharing measurements. We've already seen his influence in the DAC/amp world.
Personally, I don't think measuring speakers regularly is so insurmountable a task, especially if Amir ends up getting the Klippel system. Some manufacturers I'm sure would be happy to send samples, especially as ASR gains traction. Recieving and shipping speakers back is a pain, but I expect over time it'll become a more efficient process.