Bright High End Speakers = Bad Room?

Excellent Teo. Duke is right on. Having a TACT room control device I can analyze the in room frequency response of any loudspeaker and devise target curves to give the speaker any response curve I want. I can load 9 different response curves and switch back and forth between the nine.
A flat in room response curve is not just bright. It is way too bright and will make anyone with normal hearing wince, even kenjit. I can not relate this to the speaker's anechoic response curve because I do not know it.
I tested Watt/Puppies at a friends house. They are a very easy to listen to loudspeaker and seem to have fine detail. They were very popular among the press. Measured, they were down 10 db at 20K and had a 2 dB dip centered on 3K. One would have to believe they were intentionally designed this way. When I made them flat they were painful. 
Then there is the problem of volume. Our hearing sensitivity changes with volume. Refer to this link   https://www.kmuw.org/post/loudness-and-fletcher-munson-curve  So, a speaker that sounds balanced at 80 db will sound bright and bass heavy at 90 dB. Conversely, a speaker that is balanced at 90 dB will sound honky like a table radio at 80 dB. What this means is that any system has only one right volume at best. If you have  loudness compensation you have two right volumes. All this pertains to each individual recording! Without loudness compensation each recording has one right volume level. With loudness compensation you have another "right" volume at a lower level. 
By bouncing back and forth between the 9 different compensation curves this can be easily demonstrated to anyone except maybe cleeds. 
The TACT demonstrates that this can be managed in the digital domain using dynamic loudness compensation. It can be programmed to hop from one loudness compensation curve to another based on volume so no mater where you set the volume control the music sounds exactly the same which is very spooky. So now I have the unit programmed with two compensation curves both down 6 dB at 20K, one flat through 3K and another with a 2 dB notch filter centered on 3K for edgy recordings. Both  have 4 different volume levels. This takes up 8 presets. The ninth I keep perfectly flat for demonstration purposes. The dynamic loudness compensation has an on and off switch so I can play all 9 presets with or without loudness compensation. I always keep it "on." The different volume levels are so I can keep the TACT up against it's maximum digital volume depending on the volume of the source material. This helps to maintain maximum digital resolution (bit depth). 
TACT of course is out of business and no other unit on the market has this capability yet. Hopefully that will change before my TACT dies. 
None of this applies to strictly analog systems. As I have mentioned before I run my ARC phono amp into a Benchmark ADC so I can input it into the TACT and take advantage of it's magic. Nobody thinks running the turntable strait analog sounds better. Once you are in numbers you can do virtually anything to the signal without any increase in distortion.
Being able to modify the frequency response of the signal any way you want is a great way to learn what happens if you do this, that or the other and I am sure more units that can do this will be forthcoming from companies like Anthem and Trinnov.

I wish I could bold this in 100 point font. THIS!!!    Volume has an enormous impact on perceived tonal balance, far more than almost anything. I think I may even make a topic about it!

mijostyn1,269 posts11-01-2019 2:11pm Without loudness compensation each recording has one right volume level.

Fully agree. Wish I could find a TACT unit. My solution at the moment is a sonos streamer to martinlogan Unison for the ARC and then Antimode 2.0 for individual settings. Antimode has four channels to play with. Finally different dacs.

Here's a bit of an academic view from a professional musician and studio owner who tracks/mixes/masters many clients.   My belief is that you cannot understand this topic completely just thinking about the speaker and room alone.   I'll make a few truisms and see if people agree.

1) Flat Response speakers with accurate phase in a decent room properly communicate what the microphone is picking up when you're tracking.

2) The ideal speaker to mix on is the speaker the end user will listen on.   And by the way, it won't be the speaker above.   If you make your mix satisfy you on speaker X, then with a similar room, it will likely satisfy (approximately) the end listener.

3) End listeners do not listen on razor flat speakers with accurate phase (by the way that also means no ports).   And I believe that historically, a typical end user speaker didn't have excellent high end and thus were a bit muddy.

OK.   What does this all mean?   My experience is that when I mix on my Dunlavy Mk-VI speakers which are razor flat or Genelec, in the control room, it sounds just like the mics and the mix sounds incredible.   Then when I play back in the car or elsewhere, it's muddy.    

My conclusion is that the accurate studio speakers help you to here exactly what you recorded but......you need to adjust you mix by listening and evaluating on muddier speakers.   Then, your mix will sound right there (and too bright on your Dunlavy's).

I think it's a historical problem.   If audio began for consumers with flat speakers, we wouldn't be having this conversation.   Historically, engineers mixed bright for the average expected consumer speaker.   Then we had to continue forever.   I mentioned this to Bob Hodas (who tuned the rooms at Abbey Road) and he replied with "You've learned a powerful lesson on room tuning".

I'm scared to hear the response to my dissertation.   Thanks,  Anthony

Interesting and really something I have thought a lot about. Could you also indicate how and how much you typically compensate for lesser gear. That could help the ones that actually have better than average gear to tune it more properly.