Most recent speaker you audited in room and returned? Why did you return it?

None! But then I don't buy speakers just hoping they will just happen to sound good. If my research suggests (absent an actual in home audition) that the speakers have the characteristics that are important to me in the first place, which are supported by user/professional reviews, I buy them and I will dedicate a considerable amount of time, in some cases years actually, to dial them in by finding the appropriate electronics and carefully setting them up in my room. No small feat I think, and I can always sell them if I can't make them work for me. 

I would not do that

It's way too much work!!!

Kef LS50 Meta.I'm not so sure that I didn't get a bad set though. The left speaker sounded like it was breaking up at volume. 

I've also owned some sacred cows on this forum from smaller manufacturers that shall remain nameless for fear of reprisal. 

All the speakers i bought may ha ve been returned save the mythical Tannoy dual concentric gold which were the best i ever owned ...

I did not know for most of my life how acoustics impact the speakers working and could serve the speakers or impede them...

Now if the speakers are relatively good, nevermind their price, specs, design , i will make them shine because i learned basic acoustics ...I will not retrurn them back save if their design is too limitative and cannot be optimized ...

I did it very well modifying my low cost powered book shelf ...I use them for music now in an acoustic dedicated to them ..

I am happy with them now ; before optimization ( redesigning of the porthole ) i hated them for 10 years and i had put them for computer trivial use not music .....

Most people own top speakers as my past Tannoy and never learn how to make them shine at their optimal level ...

Then returning back the speakers , if they are not trash to begin with , is an error by ignorance of acoustics if not most at least half of the time ...😁

For sure half of the speakers if they are not trash are not interesting ... Acoustics cannot save speakers which are badly designed to begin with, not well balanced or harsh etc ...

The self powered low cost speakers i modified were universally acclaimed to begin with even they were not enough for my taste right out of the box ...I succeed to modify them because they were relatively well designed and balanced ...My modification consist among other thing to give them a better porthole , with which i go from 85 Hertz to now near 50 hertz clear not boomy at all ... 85 hertz is not enough for music ....I prefer my modification going 50 hertz instead of buying a cheap sub ... i dont need boom -boom ... I need clear layered bass ...

Costlier price tag dont replace acoustics basic knowledge and basic acoustics knowledge can elevate a low cost speaker to a more higher status ... ...

mahgister: I’ve read some of your posts and see that you like to improve speakers. I just wanted to mention a couple of things that also make a big difference and are not very costly, just in case you haven’t already done so. By the way, I began building speaker enclosures, reconning, designing and building crossover networks in my mid-teens, over 40 years ago and also used to build the cabinets for the home line of speakers for the late engineer Dave Prophit. If you are not familiar with him, he patented the Bazooka speakers that used to go behind truck seats. He later sold the patent. I later pursued many other audio related endeavors. I got into speaker building because I could not afford what I wanted and my father thought that stereo equipment was a waste of money, so he wouldn’t buy me any, although he could very well afford it.  he preferred to see me active in outdoor activities.  His stereo system consisted of a YORX receiver, which I eventually burned up by trying to boost the wattage by cutting, stripping and connecting an extension cord to the speaker terminals-lol!  If you are not familiar with YORX, they were about as crappy as you could buy, but sounded pretty trippy after the consumption of "certain chemicals"! When he came home from work he smelled "burned electronics" throughout the house and just laughed it off after I told him about my latest experiment.  Bless his heart!  I learned abou speakers by checking out books at the library and saving my allowance to buy speaker building books whenever a new edition came out at the local Radio Shack. This was before the internet existed. I continued with the "speaker building" hobby for years, until I finally got tired of it. It became a "been there done that thing". Now I prefer to just buy something already made, age has made lazier, and my finances are no longer what they used to be back then.  Anyways, I am getting sidetracked here... If you haven’t already, try using self-adhesive sound dampening material and line all the interior of the speaker cabinet with it. The heavier/denser the material the better.  The same stuff they use to line car interiors for sound dampening.  If the drivers are stamped steel instead of cast, also cut small pieces of this material and stick it to thin areas of the frame of each driver.  Also wrap the outer perimeter of the port/s. This will cut down the unwanted resonances dramatically and the difference will be very audible. You can also use heavier gauge wires between the crossovers and each driver, preferably oxygen free thinned fine pure copper stranded wire. Siver begins to get expensive, unless you make your own.  I've made many.  Silversmithing is another of my countless hobbies.  You can also replace all of the capacitors and resistors with as good as you can afford, while keeping the same values. Same with the coils. You can even buy quality solid wire and wind your own coils instead of buying them premade. There are charts and formulas out there that will tell you what gauge of wire to use and how many turns around a specific diameter to achieve a specific value, but you will need to have test equipment to know the original value of the coils first, since these are usually not marked with their values. You can also brace the cabinet by gluing wooden dowels inside. To some this may sound like snake oil, but doing these simple and inexpensive modifications will make you a believer. There are other modifications that you can make, but getting rid of resonances is the most important!  I thought about starting a new endeavor and starting a solid concrete speaker company, but life's short and there are too many other things I want to do with the rest of my time now that I am retiring.