I voted yes, but with some ambivalence. I see two questions here:
1) Can it be done? -- in some sense, I'm pretty sure the answer to that is yes (would be awesome if we could crowdfund a Klippel thingy for Amir/ASR!)
2) Can it be done well - and can it generate results that will not be misleading with regards to preference or perceived fidelity?
-- On that question, I'm not
so sure. It sounds to me like
@KSTR really know what he's talking about. Are there other members here who have been involved in speaker testing and speaker production at a comparable level? If so, I think it would be worthwhile to use their competence and experience when thinking about this. One reason I'm a bit skeptical is that I don't think speaker design is a solved issue - that there is one correct way of doing it that Harman has uncovered. Should dispersion be broad or narrow? Dr. Toole says broad, dr. Geddes says narrow. Both of them know more about psychoacoustic science than the rest of the world combined. The speaker that received the highest rating ever at the NRC was as far as I know a bipole quasi-omni speaker from Mirage. But Harman never made such a speaker. Was that based on comparisons between the Mirage and other speakers, or based on commercial considerations?
And there have been done psychoacoustic work on speakers since Toole/Harman which seem to emphasize other aspects, beyond dispersion - like this article, which was mentioned in another thread by
@svart-hvitt recently:
http://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20190626/18729.pdf
Other examples can be given.
@KSTR mentioned in another thread that one difference between the speakers he developed at Hedd and the Neumann monitors is that Neumann prioritized completely flat frequency response on-axis, while Hedd gave somewhat higher priority to the on-axis behaviour. Can we be certain that Hedd was right and Neumann wrong on this issue? I'm not sure.
Or, last example: The blind test comparison between the Revel Salon and the JBL M2 which was documented at AVS forum:
https://www.avsforum.com/forum/89-s...ccurate-well-reviewed-speakers-ever-made.html
I'm still not sure anybody really knows why the Salon was rated as the better speaker.
But I don't mean to only be negative here... I have a suggestion!
There are two things that are missing online. More complete speaker measurements is one thing. But valid blind listening impressions is another thing. And
in particular work which links measurements to listening impressions.
So here is my proposal: Say that
@amirm manages to get this Klippel thing going. Awesome! How about for each speaker that is reviewed/measured, one also assembles a small panel of listeners who listen to that speaker behind a blind or something, without knowing which speaker it is, and compare it in mono to one of Amir's Salon speakers? - and provide notes/scores? This would be super cool, I think, as it would provide further hints about the correlation between certain objective facets of speakers, and how we actually perceive them.
The implication of this would of course be that each review would be more time consuming. But I think it would make the reviews even more valuable. The LTS does this for the electronics they review, with their elaborate bypass tests... so timewise it should be possible, given that one can find panels in the Seattle area that are willing to participate.
Anyway, great initiative and great idea, and I'm looking forward to following the continued discussion.