What do you mean by 3D measurements?
I tend to agree with this, but would have thought it was the job of the engineers producing the recording to include such distortions. Perhaps you’re simply saying that your taste is for a higher level of distortion than that preferred by most engineers? There’s actually quite a bit of experimental evidence supporting the view that most listeners prefer additional distortion than that provided by a typical recording / accurate playback system.
IMO these “systems” are in fact the effects units and other processors that engineers use in the recording/mixing/mastering process.
Why couldn’t a controlled study be based on long-term listening? But in any case, there is overwhelming evidence suggesting that if something is not audible with very short-term listening, it is not audible with longer term listening.
I wasn’t sure how to intersperse my answers to your well put questions/comments on my phone where I’m typing this, so I’ll just reply in order.
By 3D measurements I simply mean measurements that address multiple angles and distance from the speaker, like the Harman spinorama tests.
I agree that it is the job of of the producers/engineers to introduce beneficial distortion that helps integrate the recordings. There are a couple of limits with this.
One is that it is hard to do well, especially in the digital domain. So the speaker is the “last chance” to pull a poorly integrated mix together. This is just a personal theory, but in the debates in the production world about the advantages/disadvantages of digital audio, I think the place where it is most impactful is in the mixing. In an analog mixing desk, there are complex, non-linear, basically chaotic interactions between the signals being mixed, due to the various suboptimal performance of the mixing device. In particular crosstalk and the inherent non-linearity of analog amplifiers. As more signals are added into a bus, pushing the amp into a different gain range, the sound of one instrument affects another.
There have been attempts to capture these effects in DSP algorithms, but so far I think it is work in progress. One issue is that most dsp approaches are deterministic, where the same input gives the same output. In contrast analog devices are non-deterministic, especially something complex like a mixer, and can’t even produce the same output to the same input.
So my theory is that a speaker with a somewhat resonant box provides a layer of non-deterministic signal processing, which my ear recognizes as “real.” This I think is a subjective preference, and haven’t heard this shared by many.
Interestingly; my studio partners subjective experience largely matches my own. Of the multiple monitors we have in our studio, we share the perception that only one pair will suffice for “fun listening.” This is a Quested 108b, which is an old design, rectangular box of mdf, 8inch woofer w dome tweeter, passive crossover.
In extension, everyday listening rooms, undamped on the physical structure or with reflections do provide a similar chaotic playback environment. Often wildly so, with a huge variety of listening and speaker placement issues within a single room, and across rooms.
The problem with this, or any kind of distortion introducing element in a playback system, is that it is hit or miss whether it will flatter or not the particular recording.
A question I have for, and this gets to the heart of my theory about my own perceived subjective preference.
Most of the classic rock recordings from the 60s to 2000s were mixed on wooden boxes. That is as close to the “true signal” as anything. (The reality is most producers/engineers work hard to make mixes that translate across a wide range of playback systems, which is why the notion of “accuracy” is hard to apply outside of the electrical characteristics of things like DACs and amps).
So if we want to bring a good representation of this experience into our home, my thesis is that a wooden box has a better chance of achieving this than a theoretical perfect speaker that would deliver only an accurate representation of the electronic signal.
The problem is is that the playback experience of the producers, especially of idiosyncratic studio monitors is not encoded in the signal.
To capture and deliver such an experience would require a system that could create the illusion that wooden boxes were playing in your room! I don’t think this is possible, especially when it comes to how we localize sound as we move in space.
Even the a mixer and mastering engineer will try to transcend the specific monitor system the album was mixed on, this is not entirely possible to do.
Because on a multitrack album, as the artists work, they respond to what they hear on playback, creatively. This means the sonic signature of the monitors can never be fully “backed out” of the signal.
To anyone wondering what the hell I’m talking about think about classic rock albums like Back In Black, Rumours, Dark Side of the Moon. My contention is that playback on a boxy speaker will be more faithful.