ACTUAL MUSICAL SOUND VS. MEASUREMENTS

Daniel von Recklinghausen, the renowned audio engineer at EAD and KLH is famous for this old chestnut: “If it measures good and sounds bad, — it is bad. If it sounds good and measures bad, — you've measured the wrong thing.” Hard to argue with the man's logic.

But who's to say what "sounds good/bad"?

One can always use the argument that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" but we know it goes beyond that and there are standards (e.g., symmetry).

@calvinj - totally. All I am saying, poorly measuring speaker is like EQ and may sound great with some recording and some rooms. Completely flat speaker sounds good in properly treated room. My setup is NOT flat intentionally, it is set up to MY taste. But I did measure it :-)

@mikhailark i have a troubling room but when my system is on in it. It’s amazing. I have taken my system to shows. Still sounds amazing 

Measurements have their place, and I use them to a point. I also use reviews from reviewers I trust, input from a select group of posters here, looks of the speaker, listening at Audio shows (I attend at least 3 a year now), quality of the components used, published specs, listening in friends systems, talking to the manufacturer and/or designer......but in the end, I have to hear the speaker at some point, and that is the final arbiter.

I did buy the Clayton Shaw Caladan speakers sight unseen, when only one review was out, and they were many months away from production. So you can basically say I bought them solely on one review and Clayton's reputation, and the fact that I really liked the speakers he designed at Spatial Audio.

I will look at the impedance curve, on axis response (vertical and horizontal), off axis response (vertical and horizontal), spectral decay, etc. Poor measurements can be an indication of issues that will be present in a listening test.

The funny thing is that most speakers that sound amazing, may not have perfect measurements, but they will not have any major flaws. Some of my favorite speakers of all time (Thiels and vintage Reference Series Infinity) will fall below 2 ohms for short or even longer periods at some frequencies. In that case, I know they will need an amp with high current delivery.