Yeah, definitely the right question. I don't know. I suspect that could be the case. I didn't like everything better about the Martin Logan speakers. I missed some of the sense of accuracy and precision from the Kii speakers. But there was a slight shift of timbre in the ML that I liked. The question is whether that was purely due to a frequency response deviation, or some other additional factors (like dispersion/interaction with room/some other distortion characteristics?)
So I don't know.
I can say that I had a digital parametric EQ in my system for many years and when I had speakers in that didn't sound quite "right" in timbral terms, even trying to EQ them didn't get them to sound enough like the speakers I liked, to work for me.
actually I personally believe it's more similar to "chasing the ghost" in these, we basically have no way to accurately determine if it's psychological factor dictating those preference for view, sighted. Say one have initial impression of the more accurate one doesn't have something sounding right, or more "real" in the test track,
It can be:
1) the record itself is dificient for the mix, say, clipping, uneven tonal balance in mixing
2) the room interaction
3) mental impression of "how this recording should sound" from the old, used to equipment
4) other psycholigical effects
5) some magic parameters not measurable
6) some measurable difference which is not easy to read in the spin data.
thing is, just maybe, if we have a room showing you an illution of using the ML speakers but actually it's the Kii is playing, you might feel it sounded different. I once did a small trick, much like those youtube A vs B demo tests, where I put the graphics to be two different speakers, and let audiophile friends have some "critical listen and impression", where most of them picked out various differences, but in reality, it is, just playing the raw music from the headphone used, nothing changed except the image. psychology is tricky thing for me at least, when you want to tune A into something similar to B where you used to like, just by knowing you are hunting for the difference, you almost certainly can find "the difference" another thing is just like car modding, when ppl mod it with bigger wheels, stiffer suspension, huge spoiler etc. in short tests, one almost always find it handles better, and can "go faster", but then in a track lap, with same tyres (same model, not size), more often than not, a sporty sedan with everything stock factory setting can actually have higher stability and go around quicker.
One observation is the "golden ear" camp, I think most of you have experienced something like calling in friends using more consumer brands of audio equipment for comparison of your new toy vs old toy, they more often cannot discern the difference between good speaker A vs good speaker B, but almost everytime when you go for a specific target speaker in shops or homes, you can find the differences.
I would say it's the difference between really enjoying the music or digging at the differences between gears played quite an important or even dominant role, when you try to tune for "that magic sound I loved", and once being skeptic "if this eq could truely make it?", I bet 9 out of 10 times you would find the thing "that's just off", or the analog camp which swear about old printed vinyl which is "magical" for any record they buy after feeling they like the record from streaming without knowing that the magic vinyl was just printed out of the digital source
That aside it could be those magic, more hidden parameters like transient response or minor resonance could contribute to the impressions, but when I am asked, I would just trust the scientific data for being more true to the source as possible, with a trusted house curve dialed in the bass, and then enjoy the music all along, I maybe fooling myself on these believes with the mental picture, but hey, it's much easier to achieve the audio heaven at much cheaper cost isn't it? even if say, when my genelecs breaks or I need something new, I can have a wider option list on my radar for "good enough" not only for sound, but for WAF, size and money.