A Broad Discussion of Speakers with Major Audio Luminaries

[Floyd Toole]

I am sorry to derail from the topic of this thread, but I would be interested to read your comments about the effect of the white diffusors.

To my eyes, the total surface of the diffusors seems very low and I wonder about the benefit they procure and why they have been placed where they are.

There was no science to the positioning of the RPG diffusers - they only affect high frequencies: over about 1 kHz as I recall, and are useful mainly to minimize flutter echoes - and to look "cool". The large panel absorbers were thick enough to be effective down to the transition frequency - they did the real work.

 

[Kr2d2]

Fascinating. In my PhD work in the early 1060s [...]

How was it then just before 1066 ??

Sorry, I couldn't resist ...

 

[Newman]

I had a chance to re-listen to Erin’s interview of @Floyd Toole Dr. Toole and just realized it was actually 4 years ago, I just recently happened to catch it because it popped up as a suggesting in my YouTube feed and what he is saying is as, or more applicable today, as it was then.

Here it is, if anyone missed it:

The relevant part starts at 14:30 where Dr. Toole mentions the following:

Comparative listing is essential. (Listening to one pair of speakers provides nearly no information, other than identifying a tune)

Comparing 2 pairs is better than 1 pair because if both pairs share a common problem it can be missed. 3 pairs is sort of a minimum, 4 is better. (Nice story about how the 4 speaker comparison was “chosen” from his early days at the NRC).

A long audition on a single model in your home provides almost no useful information a/ “adaptation” sets in. “The speakers don’t break in, you break in” to the speakers, warts and all. We have the ability to listen through and adapt to “crappy” speakers. (Obviously an industry term)

These gems/reminders were all in the context of his 50+ years of research, and how his research translates to information for manufacturers to design and build good speakers, and the need for objective evaluating/reviewing of speakers.

(Earlier in the interview Erin and Dr. Toole covered need for blind testing in speaker comparisons, and that his research was typically double blind as that is preferred method in science).

Overall what I took away is: if you have ability to do a blind 3 or more speaker comparison you can come away with some useful information. Short of that it’s a complete guess.

Unfortunately, Erin never asks Dr. Toole “so knowing all of this, how can the consumer incorporate all of this great research in a buying a pair of speakers? Just assume they have the ability to get 3 or 4 pairs of speakers in their home at the same time, a really great spouse/audio friend who is willing to help (in the interest of science), how should they go about trying to make the best choice possible for their home?”

I just want to thank you for taking the time to provide a very decent summary of the video that you linked. Much appreciated, and sets the standard.

 

[MattHooper]

It just describes our tendency to 'settle'.... but only as long as we avoid comparisons. As soon as the aspirational audiophile who has adapted to his (or her) cheapest speakers encounters superb speakers it won't take him (or her) two seconds to exclaim "oh gawd my speakers are sh*t". Then when he (etc) returns home how do you think that is going to play out? Knowing for certain how poor one's speakers are will have built cognitive bias against them that will wrestle with the (gradually returning) adaptation, and cognitive bias tends to win out. Our audiophile will maintain the opinion his speakers are sh*t even as he re-adapts. It won't end well for his cheapest speakers.

That certainly could be the case.

On the other hand it could go the other way.
If we’re just looking at the basic implications of adaptation, if somebody has truly adapted to a “poorer” speaker design, his/her encounter with a “ better” design may result in rejecting the better speaker. In this case, we aren’t talking about the type of relatively quick switching comparisons done in the Harman facilities, but instead where somebody has lived with a speaker and truly adapted to the sound on its own.

So for instance, if somebody had fully adapted to the sound profile of their B&W speaker with their pronounced more vivid upper frequencies, a Revel or other neutral loudspeaker may strike them as “ too boring.”

So perhaps depending on circumstances simply encountering the sound of a better designed speaker won’t always do the trick.

Anecdotally, I’ve seen plenty of such experiences reported by various audiophiles.
Most have heard quite a range of loudspeakers which will include more neutral and less neutral, and still some are ending up choosing speakers with colorations.
In fact, I’ve seen the occasional report from an audiophile who even bought Revel speakers and ended up selling them for more coloured speakers. I myself thought the Revel speakers I auditioned sounded just as competent as their measurements suggest, and yet I still ended up enjoying some other loudspeakers more - even a pair that some on ASR consider a train wreck in terms of measurements.

If the response to that is: “ but your comparisons are illegitimate because they were done under sighted conditions and therefore you cannot draw any inferences from what you thought you heard” then that would undermine your own example which allowed conclusions from such informal listening and get us right back to the idea MarkS was pushing at.

Your example is of course perfectly legitimate and reasonable. It’s simply the overreaching language that I saw MarkS as satirizing.

The fact that Matt fell for your comment and mistook it for a powerful argument, .... oh well. We've gotten used to that.

You might wish to revisit the post to which MarkS was responding. It contained claims that long term listening to a pair of loudspeakers in your home would yield almost no useful information, and short of blind testing it against other speakers any assessment of the character of those speakers is a “ complete guess.”

That’s the type of language that invoked Mark’s argument add absurdum.

I think one can reasonably present the well documented liabilities of issues like adaptation, bias, etc., without descending into that level of exaggeration.

Cheers.

 

[Travis]

I just want to thank you for taking the time to provide a very decent summary of the video that you linked. Much appreciated, and sets the standard.

Thank you, but it was only a summary from the time stated, and Dr. Toole’s points so people can see what Dr. Toole actually says about these things. “Don’t take my word.@ But I did think it was important to sunrise key points because I think there is some confusion about the, the context, etc.

Thank you for the comment.

 

[MattHooper]

In terms of placebo/bias effects wearing off quickly:

I don’t know the answer, but some of my experience doing blind tests seems to suggest they can wear off quickly.

For instance when I replaced one music server with another I seemed to perceive a bit of “ brittleness or brightness in the highs” with the new server. I was not expecting that and it did not make sense given house servers work, but it was nagging at me enough to have a friend come over and help me run a blind test between the old and new server. Once we did that, I couldn’t detect any difference whatsoever between them - no extra brightness or brittleness and the highs to identify.

Once I had that experience, and put my worry to rest, any sense of change to the sound with a new server essentially disappeared quickly, and I recognized my system, sounded the same as it ever did.

Another more recent instance in a bias effect, though not a blind test: when I bought an extra pre-amplifier I needed some new interconnects. I borrowed some spare interconnects just to get up and running from an audiophile and these interconnects cost something like $5000! They came trailing
“ great reviews” but I didn’t care. All I needed was a pair of connect for a while.

Eventually I gave them back and replace them with cheap $40 Audioblast interconnects from Amazon. I was not expecting to hear a difference, but I think the mere act of knowing that I changed the cables caused me to perceive “ something” a bit different in the sound with the cheap cables. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was some impression of a slight change. Amir pointed out that even he, after measuring a cable that he knows to be identical, can experience “ hearing a difference.”

But knowing that this was highly unlikely just based on electronic theory, I just moved on and sure enough, very quickly my system did not sound any different to me than it ever had. That effect vanished quite soon.

This also happened to me many years ago when I blind tested a variety of video cables from cheap to expensive (back in the analogue video cable days). Once I discovered under blind conditions I couldn’t really tell a difference, the impressions I had of any difference pretty much went on the shelf and disappeared.

On the other hand, it was interesting some of the sighted impressions that survived blind testing.

For instance, back in the late 90’s I had been using a decent Sony CD player for years in my system and I acquired a Meridian CD player. The Meridian immediately struck me as sounding different. Nothing huge, of course, but there seem to be a subtle but very distinct texture and tonality and focus that distinguished from the Sony sound.

Once again my sceptical hackles were raised, so I had an engineer family member help me to a blind shootout, random switching, level matched with a voltmeter at the speaker, terminals, etc.

And I found that subtle but distinct character very easy to identify in the Meridian player (as well against another DAC I had on hand).

Likewise, for years my Conrad Johnson tube pre-amplifier seemed to have a subtle but similarly distinct character versus other preamplifiers in my system, including against my other solid state preamplifier.

And that impression held up as well under blind test testing.

I would say there seemed to me a bit of difference between the impressions that held up under blind testing, and those that didn’t (I’ve also blind tested AC cables… no difference). The differences that vanished, under blind testing in my case tended to be more on the edge of “do I hear that or not?”

Whereas the differences that held up under blind testing seemed, even when subtle, to be quite distinct.

I don’t know that says anything though. After all people can imagine “ distinct” differences in sound.

On the other hand…

There is my 25 year experience with my tube amplifiers in which I have had a very persistent impression of specific sonic characteristics. It it’s never changed. And it has survived occasional comparisons through the years with different amplifiers in my system, including a number of solid state amplifiers.

If we take the idea that bias effects are short-lived, it could suggest the consistency and persistence of my sighted impressions with those amplifiers are accurate - they really do with my loudspeakers produce the characteristics I think I perceive.

But I doubt anybody here would draw that conclusion. Nor would I. It seems to me a sort of expectation effect could persist all those years - including expectations each time I did a shoot out with some other amplifier. So I wouldn’t rule out a long, lasting bias effect short of blind testing like I was able to do with my preamplifier.

But as I’ve said before, if it’s a bias effect, it is such a pleasant and reliable one that I’m happy to avail myself of it.

 

[Salt]

If it sounds correct and especially feels good for You, it's all right.
Why bother ?

 

[Matt_Holland]

For instance, back in the late 90’s I had been using a decent Sony CD player for years in my system and I acquired a Meridian CD player. The Meridian immediately struck me as sounding different. Nothing huge, of course, but there seem to be a subtle but very distinct texture and tonality and focus that distinguished from the Sony sound.

And I found that subtle but distinct character very easy to identify in the Meridian player (as well against another DAC I had on hand).

Proto-MQA working its magic

If you can remember, roughly how often did you correctly identify the DAC being played?

 

[MattHooper]

Proto-MQA working its magic

If you can remember, roughly how often did you correctly identify the DAC being played?

I still have the info on that test.

Two runs:

Results of TEST C
Meridian vs Sony

(out of 6 trials)
Incorrect Guesses: 0
Correct guesses: 6

TEST D
Meridian/Sony

(out of 12 trials)
Incorrect Guesses: 0
Correct Guesses: 12

And I also blind tested the Meridian vs a Museatex DAC:

Meridian vs Museatex

Out of 18 trials
Incorrect Guesses: 1
Correct Guesses: 17

Results of TEST B:
(Out of 10 trials)
Incorrect Guesses: none
Correct Guesses: 10

 

[Travis]

Fascinating. In my PhD work in the early 1060s I did some experiments correlating visual and auditory positional localization using an in-head (headphone presented) sound image and a visual "blob" on a TV screen. The experiment started with the images in sync, but I gradually introduced a time delay bias in the auditory image. The listener image tracking responses showed that the visual cue was dominant - they did not notice the discrepancy. After about an hour a purely auditory localization test was done and the results showed that they had adapted: zero interaural time difference (ITD) was no longer judged to be a centre image. Thus was disproved a longstanding psychoacoustic belief in sound image "centering" experiments that relied on the notion that zero ITD and centre localization was a "hard wired" property of humans. The adaptation faded quickly once listeners were exposed to the real world of correlated visual and auditory cues. This experience never left me. I have since never ignored the reality and power of adaptation. Your example is more proof. Thanks.

In recalling this study I was thinking “Dr. Toole and Dr. Nusbaum really should get together, to at least compare notes. To me there is an overlap in what the experiments have confirmed, but from different fields of science.

Dr. Nusbaum also has an EEG test that is able to to identify when the brain recognizes the note, and the pathway of those nerve impulses, and the part(s) of the brain where a note recognition occurs-this from observing blood flow changes around brain during fMRI of people with proven absolute pitch vs. people like us mere mortals.

I will get some links to the general gist of some of his work and post them here.

One I thought was interesting was on note/frequency recognition by absolute pitch individuals-accuracy of identifying notes played on a piano vs. sine wave tone. 99% correct on piano, 75% correct with sine wave tone. Obviously means they are getting more information from piano (timbre?) then a sign waive. The recorded tones and piano notes are played to test subject through low quality headphones IIRC while they take test on a laptop.

Travis

Edit to correct term “sine tone”

 

[Travis]

I still have the info on that test.

Two runs:

Results of TEST C
Meridian vs Sony

(out of 6 trials)
Incorrect Guesses: 0
Correct guesses: 6

TEST D
Meridian/Sony

(out of 12 trials)
Incorrect Guesses: 0
Correct Guesses: 12

And I also blind tested the Meridian vs a Museatex DAC:

Meridian vs Museatex

Out of 18 trials
Incorrect Guesses: 1
Correct Guesses: 17

Results of TEST B:
(Out of 10 trials)
Incorrect Guesses: none
Correct Guesses: 10

Can I be your agent? You can derive a multimillion dollar income from those abilities and we can get you all expense paid trips to audio shows and AES Conferences (this year AES is in Helsinki, super fun town).

 

[MattHooper]

Can I be your agent? You can derive a multimillion dollar income from those abilities and we can get you all expense paid trips to audio shows and AES Conferences (this year AES is in Helsinki, super fun town).

Finally, my talents are appreciated!

This is my Sally Fields moment!

 

[Travis]

Finally, my talents are appreciated!

This is my Sally Fields moment!

Talents you can monetize are always appreciated. I have always liked you, just the parts you were offered were holding you back.

 

[kemmler3D]

when I replaced one music server with another I seemed to perceive a bit of “ brittleness or brightness in the highs” with the new server. I was not expecting that and it did not make sense given house servers work, but it was nagging at me enough to have a friend come over and help me run a blind test between the old and new server. Once we did that, I couldn’t detect any difference whatsoever between them - no extra brightness or brittleness and the highs to identify.

I just want to highlight this comment because it illustrates something I've been thinking about lately.

Placebo effect in audio is not just common, but very convincing.

You're knowledgeable about audio and you knew a server isn't supposed to change the sound. But you went to the trouble of doing a blind test anyway because you couldn't just dismiss what you heard so easily. And, eventually the placebo effect went away. But for a while, I guess it seemed quite real.

I would caution anyone reading this thread inclined to say "I know what I heard" to think about this. Of course you heard it! When you hear something due to placebo effect, there's no clue that tells you it's not real. You heard what you heard. But @MattHooper is a professional who works with audio and was fooled (for a bit) by placebo. You, dear reader, are not immune!

Neither are other professionals who work with audio... maybe even ones who review stuff on youtube or in magazines... ones that proudly let their ears lead the way and never question what they hear?

This is why we need measurements and blind tests! People hear all kinds of things, and we want to nail down WHY they heard them.

 

[Travis]

Fascinating. In my PhD work in the early 60s, I did some experiments correlating visual and auditory positional localization using an in-head (headphone presented) sound image and a visual "blob" on a TV screen. The experiment started with the images in sync, but I gradually introduced a time delay bias in the auditory image. The listener image tracking responses showed that the visual cue was dominant - they did not notice the discrepancy. After about an hour a purely auditory localization test was done and the results showed that they had adapted: zero interaural time difference (ITD) was no longer judged to be a centre image. Thus was disproved a longstanding psychoacoustic belief in sound image "centering" experiments that relied on the notion that zero ITD and centre localization was a "hard wired" property of humans. The adaptation faded quickly once listeners were exposed to the real world of correlated visual and auditory cues. This experience never left me. I have since never ignored the reality and power of adaptation. Your example is more proof. Thanks.

A UChicago news release about the study I referenced with a cool video on background of the experiment and Dr. Nusbaum explaining what the results mean:

Perfect pitch may not be absolute after all

news.uchicago.edu

I have attached the referenced paper “Absolute Pitch May Not Be So Absolute,” from Psychological Science

Other research announcements:

Perfect pitch, explained

How rare is perfect pitch—and can you learn it?

news.uchicago.edu

A quote from that article:

“The best predictor of perfect pitch, according to recent research from Nusbaum’s lab led by doctoral student Katherine Reis, is a brain response measure called the “frequency following response,” which provides a snapshot of the overall integrity of a person’s ability to process and classify sounds.”

An article on Frequency Following Response (FFR)

Why can’t we identify music notes as well as colors? A perfect pitch study offers clues

Neuroscientists explore how people with absolute pitch process sounds

news.uchicago.edu

Neuroscientists explore how people with absolute pitch process sounds​

“The task the researchers tested participants on required naming piano notes and naming “pure” sine tones generated by a computer (these represent exact frequencies without an instrument’s timbre).

“Thirty-one people participated in the study: 16 with perfect pitch and 15 who were accomplished musicians without perfect pitch. In each trial, the scientists used electrodes attached non-invasively to people’s heads to monitor the way their brains and nervous systems reacted to sounds—a measure called the “frequency following response” (FFR)—and recorded their accuracy along with details about the participants’ backgrounds in music, including prior training.

“They found that in both groups, the FFR—which provides a snapshot of the integrity of a person’s ability to process sounds—predicted people’s performance on pitch identification better than any metric previously used in studies of perfect pitch, including musical training. (Emphasis mine)

“Participants also tended to be better at naming notes played on a piano as compared to the computer-generated sine tones: Those with perfect pitch averaged 98% accuracy on piano and 77% for sine tones, while those without averaged 29% accuracy on piano and 25% for sine tones.

Like you, he has 100s of peer reviewed papers, but these jumped out about adaptation and auditory perception as it might relate to audio. They also provided a “trail” over that last 10 years of where the research and studies started and led up to this point.

Travis

 

[Travis]

It’s not unusual for us to have identified characteristics that show up in the measurements - for instance my friend was bothered by a big trough in the midrange of a recent loudspeaker, and that showed up in the measurements later on).

The analogy for the two of you (how cool to have that opportunity) is the perfect pitch study that proved audio perception is mailable (adaptation). You have constant references. You must have neutral loudspeakers that your brain references when you hear a trough. Without that reference your brain will adapt to those changes given enough time and degree of change.

As the article indicated, 20 years of perfect pitch experience re-trained (adapted) to 33 cents off in 15 minutes until they reference back to playing and seeing with their own eyes that a certain reference note is played.

 

[Travis]

As soon as the aspirational audiophile who has adapted to his (or her) cheapest speakers encounters superb speakers it won't take him (or her) two seconds to exclaim "oh gawd my speakers are sh*t". Then when he (etc) returns home how do you think that is going to play out?

He will build a pair of DIY speakers and Barenak’s Law will apply in conjunction with IKEA effect (a real type of confirmation bias) to where he will be very happy no matter how they measure, until. . . .

 

[MattHooper]

The analogy for the two of you (how cool to have that opportunity) is the perfect pitch study that proved audio perception is mailable (adaptation). You have constant references.

Both of us are used to having a number of different speakers cycling through our systems. At one point, I had seven different pairs of loudspeakers, but I winnowed it down to 5.

My friend reviews high-end audio equipment for a webzine, so aside from two or three pairs of speakers he owns he’s constantly moving through speakers.

For instance, when he started listening to a review pair of Boressen speakers he told me he was hearing a scoop out, especially in what seemed the upper bass/low mids, causing instruments in that range to sound recessed. So he did a quick room measurement which showed a wide nearly 10db trough around the 200Hz area. Neither his reference speakers nor the previous Dali Epicore speakers he had just reviewed measured with this trough. (and it was the same type of measurement that Erin of Erin’s Audio Corner heard and measured in the next size up Boressen model - a house sound).

Another time not that long ago he called me over after he had a new loudspeaker in for a little while (YGs) and he sat me down without saying anything and just asked me to play a selection of music I was familiar with and give my opinion.

My immediate opinion was “ There’s no bass!” I said that I had closed my eyes at one point listening to a track I know and even though these were fairly sizeable floor standing speakers sonically I may as well been listening to tiny stand-mounted speakers, because they were so light in the bass. And that they were sort of thin sounding generally at a bit too tipped up and the upper mids and highs.

He said that was precisely his impression. Which is why he brought me over for a second opinion to see if he was crazy or not.
We spent a while, moving the speakers back-and-forth and couldn’t find a satisfactory balance. The speakers were measured at the NRC and the word back was “ yeah, these are under damped and are gonna sound light in the bass… try shoving them towards the corners.”

And that ended up being the fix.

I’m not sure that we necessarily had to be doing an A / B with more neutral speakers in order to notice this problem with the bass.

By the way, here’s a quick adaptation story: same friend. But many years ago he set up a projection system in his basement to watch DVDs and I would come over and watch (before I got into protection myself). The thing is he was using a horrible old used low resolution business projector, which was as loud as a jet and apparently on its last legs.
And there was this growing big splotch of purple in one corner of the screen. And in the year or two in which I was visiting to watch movies, it did finally become so big it had washed out, probably 1/5 of the picture around that corner.

That’s why I finally said to my friend “ do you really have no problem putting up with that big purple blotch?”

And he said “ what purple blotch?”

Me: that one right there. That huge growing blob of purple wiping out part of your image in the corner of the screen!

Him: shrugs. Oh…yeah…right… I never noticed it.

That blew my mind . That’s the power of adaptation over time for you!

You must have neutral loudspeakers that your brain references when you hear a trough. Without that reference your brain will adapt to those changes given enough time and degree of change.

Yes, the adaptation phenomenon is interesting, though I would presume that the issue was going to be variable.

For instance, if you’ve had some neutral speakers for a while and then you switch in some speakers that maybe have a little boost in the highs you may notice that brightness at first and then adapt to it so it’s no longer sticking out or obvious to you. And also maybe your preference might adapt as well.

On the other hand, I don’t know that this means that one still can’t have an adequate understanding of the characteristics of a loudspeaker, even after owning it for a long time.

As an analogy, even though my friend had adapted to the purple splotch on his screen from the projector, he was able to see it once it was pointed out to him.

Likewise, I may not be consciously thinking of the sonic characteristics of my current loudspeakers all the time. And whenever I come home from listening to another system, my system sounds “ right” to me. Which may be a combination of adaptation, as well as simply the fact I have set up a system that I like.

But even so as I pointed out, it still seems to me I can perceive the same basic characteristics that I did from day one from these loudspeakers. If asked to describe the sound I’d give the same description over time. And my perception is at least consonant with the objective Stereophile measurements.

So wither adaptation in such a case?
I don’t know. Possibly a bit complex.

 

[Jaxx1138]

He will build a pair of DIY speakers and Barenak’s Law will apply in conjunction with IKEA effect (a real type of confirmation bias) to where he will be very happy no matter how they measure, until. . . .

. Psycological bias, prejudice, and ego are often reasons human's fail in many endeavors. "Trust me, I know" Oh my, I did it already! This is why the double blind experiments are so crucial. Since this is not part of my expertise, here's what the internet says:
Here's why:

• Cognitive Biases are Pervasive:The IKEA effect itself is a prime example of a cognitive bias, demonstrating how our subjective valuation of an item can disproportionately exceed its objective worth simply because we've invested personal labor into it. This isn't a flaw in logic but a fundamental aspect of human perception.
  
  
  
  
• Effort Justification:We have a deep-seated psychological need to justify the effort we expend. If we put time and energy into something, we tend to inflate its value to make that effort feel worthwhile, even if the outcome isn't objectively superior. This internal rationalization directly compromises objective assessment.
  
  
  
• Sense of Ownership and Competence:The act of creation fosters a strong sense of psychological ownership and personal accomplishment. This taps into our need to feel capable and in control, leading us to value our creations more highly as they serve as tangible proof of our skill and efficacy. This emotional connection inherently biases our judgment.
  
  
  
  
• Cognitive Dissonance:When there's a mismatch between the effort we've invested and the objective quality of the outcome, we experience discomfort. To reduce this "cognitive dissonance," we adjust our perception of the object's value upwards, aligning it with our effort. This is a direct mechanism for subjective re-evaluation.
  
  
  
• Self-Perception Theory:We often infer our attitudes and feelings by observing our own behaviors. If we've put a lot of effort into building something, we conclude that we must genuinely like or value it highly to justify that involvement. Our actions shape our attitudes, rather than attitudes always preceding actions.
  
  
  
• Endowment Effect:This related bias shows that we tend to value items more simply because we own them. The act of building something immediately establishes ownership, further amplifying this subjective valuation.
  
  
• Sunk Cost Fallacy:This bias makes us more likely to continue investing in or valuing something the more resources (including effort) we've already committed, even if it's irrational from an objective standpoint. For instance, over-involvement in financial markets can lead to a loss of objectivity regarding one's own investment choices.
  
  
  
• Overconfidence in Creations:Studies on the IKEA effect show that participants often perceive their own amateurish creations as comparable in value to those crafted by experts and even expect others to share this inflated opinion. This highlights a significant departure from objective assessment.
  

In essence, our psychological makeup, driven by needs for competence, ownership, and the desire to justify our actions, means that our evaluations are frequently colored by our personal involvement and emotional connections. While we can strive for objectivity, a truly "pure" objective evaluation, free from any personal bias, is a significant challenge for human psychology.
Sources and related content
https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/ikea-effect

 

[Vuki]

You are right. And I will add, for the nth time, because of small rooms bass is unique to every listening situation and it accounts for about 30% of our overall impression - for some even more. It will ALWAYS need attention before one can say that one is evaluating the "speaker".

Maybe not always?

This is my friend's beautiful listening room where dimensions and lot of bass absorption created "bass black hole".

Pushing the loudspeakers to the corners helps, but then wonderful 3d soundstage collapses...