A New? Way to Buy Loudspeakers??

The only problem with that is in the quality  they may expect .
crutchfield has midfi at best. 

I'm still thinking that if this an entry point for young people who only wear headphones...then midfi is better than nofi....and then later, they can always move up if they really get interested.

Well, it’s clever. And I suppose if your listening room in anechoic, and your budget for speakers matches Crutch’s price range, and your ear shape matches the microphone baffle, it might help narrow down which speakers to order for a home audition. To Crutchfield’s credit, the only real way to buy speakers, which is with a home audition, is possible because of their return policy.

I bought my first serious pair of speakers after exhaustive trips to audition various speakers in dealer showrooms. I was never really happy with my choice. I bought my current (and probably final) pair of speakers after a three month in-home audition, and I couldn’t be happier.

I love Crutchfield for what they do.  My go to for their stuff. Sure beats Best Buy.  That said... nice try on this one.  Takes me hours of listening to decide.   The real question... is it working for some customers.  

Since they just rolled this out a week or two ago, I suspect that there will be some tweaks in the months to come.  Its pretty interesting that they hired two phd engineers to develop this program...and I'm sure a bunch more to program it into their system and then test it and roll it out.

It may not help them with customers as much as they hope for initially...but it may send a strong message to suppliers that they should be distributing their products through Crutchfield and that in itself is pretty valuable.