There's hope for you yet.
Ha! Fair enough.
I happily seek to hear speakers of all different types, those that measure really well (by the lights of ASR etc) and even those that don't. I really enjoy the way speakers sound different from one another, and enjoy experiencing what those differences do for the character of the listening experience. So I love the speaker auditioning experience (and hearing different set ups at audiophile's houses, at audio shows, etc).
I understand others have a different approach and are more: "just give me the speaker I want, and give me the measurements that will help me ignore lots of speakers and zero in on the one I want." My own views don't contradict such an approach at all; it's just that I don't share that
exact goal in terms of what I get out of this hobby.
What I find interesting here is your depth of subjectivism for want of a better description and why it should make you prefer a product with inferior measurements (likely case) and being in favour of listening to a system for how long? and then making your mind up on what you heard that day.
Well in my own case, I audition gear (speakers) when I can at a dealer, and otherwise resort to buying gear second hand to try out, and re-sell if I don't like it or when I'm done. I do not experience this as a hopeless "shooting arrows in the dark" process, but one I truly enjoy. I love being able to check out different gear.
And it's quite rare that even when I buy second hand that I'm actually disappointed. I may keep an item for a couple years, a decade, longer...but eventually selling it doesn't mean it didn't provide me with plenty of enjoyment.
When it comes to auditioning speakers at a dealer, it often happens when I'm auditioning different speakers (including at other dealers) that I'm interested in.
I have my test tracks and I listen to tons of different music I know on the speaker, as well as experimenting with speaker positioning, listener position etc. I have found that I come away with a generally reliable impression of the speaker this way: I am virtually never surprised when I end up with the speaker in my home, vs what I heard during the audition phase.
My equipment sounds different every day. I don't really know how it sounds. I'm not expecting to experience a replica of a live performance in my home.
Just a couple of saxophones playing in a confined space can be pretty teeth grinding.
Agreed! I don't actually want the sound of someone blaring a sax or trombone or trumpet full volume in my listening room. I sure as hell wouldn't want a real drummer in front of me banging away either. My ears would give out very fast. So what I like certain aspects of "the real thing" that I find engaging. My father was a jazz musician/music teacher and I grew up hearing him played sax constantly in the house (and trumpets, piano, clarinet, trombone...and more), and I played sax as well. There are certain timbral aspects that say to me "
THAT is the beautiful tone I recognize of a sax. " The harmonic richness of the real thing is intoxicating. If I can get *some* of that recognizable in sound reproduction, even if not all and not reaching "perfect realism," I find it enhances my enjoyment. The same goes for other aspects. I don't need perfect replication of real world dynamics in a guitar or drum reproduction...but if one speaker seems to produce the recording with a bit more dynamic life, translating the life-energy of the performer better, that too is welcome. And on and on.
The thing is, even though I have done direct live vs reproduced comparisons (in my own home using recordings of voices, instruments we own etc), in the end I'm not going to be sitting there constantly doing live vs reproduced comparisons. What I have to work with is my own memory and impressions of what I like about the live version of a sax, voice, acoustic guitar etc. So I only have to please myself, my own impressions, in that regard. And very often when I hear a sax or acoustic guitar through speakers it just doesn't sound right - the timbral color seems "off" and not pleasing. Where sometimes I can hear it and it just strikes me as "YES! THAT is capturing something really essential, tonally, that my brain interprets as "right" and makes me want to keep listening."
I think it gets overlooked that be it analogue or digital once it's been recorded it's data. There isn't any music there. Why would anyone want corrupted data? With the aid of a bit of manipulation one can make changes to that data if you don't like what the data is telling you but surely one would want the original accurate copy at least.
My take is that, for me (depending on the gear we are talking about), the right amount of slight flavoring will tend to make almost everything sound better and more pleasing, while not being anywhere near enough to cover up the unique details of any recording. It's all an illusion; I have no qualms about manipulating it to a degree it's more pleasurable.