At various times you have stated that you want to understand why some listeners enjoy the WATT despite its clear measured flaws. Many posters have explained why your presumptions were incorrect, but somehow you keep coming back to them and seem to want to attribute some genius to WA engineers that are not supported by any facts in evidence. Remember, if you are going to make such a claim, at the very least you need to have some objective supporting evidence to validate your claim. Let's go over some facts:
Amir did not state the speakers were good without eq
Amir did not state that even with eq, the tonality of the WATT was superior or equal to any number of far cheaper and better measuring speakers.
Amir did express a preference for the eq'd WATT against a very good measuring and 1/5 the cost Revel.
Amir stated that he preferred the highs and bass of the eq'd WATT.
Any reasonable assumptions of preference of this speaker over the WATT would require a blind test, and preferably using trained evaluators
Dr. Toole's research tells him that evaluators should be young (20-40s?). Dr Toole, stoped participating in evaluations yrs ago despite being a VERY experienced tester because he considers his hearing flawed due to age.
Amir is in his 60's, his high frequency hearing is surely compromised. Is it reliable to 13KHz, 15KHz? I have no idea, but I certainly would not assume his hearing is discerning enough to evaluate speakers above 14KHz. His preference for the highs in the WATT could quite easily be related to limitations in his hearing at high frequencies (i.e. exaggerated highs will give a better sense of detail as opposed to a feeling of being exaggerated)
Lastly, Amir like many listeners has expressed a liking for speakers that exhibit better dynamic range. The WATT has decent distortion figures and has a better dynamic range than the Revel's UT. A preference for dynamic range explains Amir's preference of the WATT over the Revel's far better than any of the magical explanations you seem to be seeking. A more interesting comparison would likely have been with the JBL 4349. It is a larger (and uglier for some) speaker than the WATT, but the latter cost at least 33% more. It is also flawed from some metrics' perspectives, but they exhibit excellent dynamic range.
Here are Amir's impressions of the 4349:
"Beyond the bass the impression of the two speakers was so different. The salon 2 was producing a smooth, highly integrated sound column. The 4349 seemed to have a dual character where it would be come extremely lively with high frequency dynamics. This was super pleasurable but less refined than Salon 2's reserved but excellent reproduction. My thought during the whole affair was that you really wanted both of these speakers and use them based on mood and music.
This is one of few good sounding speakers that don't have the "Revel sound" to me. It is a different way of solving the same problem...
I hardly ever come home from a show thinking of replacing my speakers with anything I see there. The only exception was a set of large horn speakers that had dynamics that I could not replicate with my Salon 2s. The 4349 allowed me to get there and so points to high efficiency mattering. People routinely underestimate how much power it takes to reproduce dynamics well. Even my high power amplifier struggles to push the Salon 2 there. But with 4349, that struggle disappeared with a bunch of headroom left."
Nothing about the measurements suggests anything magical about the design of the WATT (or that it has elevated audio engineering in any fashion). The preferences expressed by Amir and DWI are easily explained without resorting to pretzel logic. Occam's razor clearly applies here unless there is some significant evidence to suggest otherwise.
Although I don't share DWI's view of WA, I find some posters attributions to him (e.g. intent, taste, faculties to make decisions [i.e. you gotta be a moron to choose the WATT over my preferred 1K speaker] extremely presumptuous, unfair (they have nowhere near the facts necessary to make any judgments about him or his choices), and quasi psychotic (i.e. if you don't see the world as I do, and judge as I do, then you are found wanting in a very substantial way).
Well, I am pretty sure I have offended a few already, so perhaps this is a good time to stop. Happy New Year.
