Dear Kenjit - I disagree with your premise that the goal of a high-end speaker is to reproduce the input signal perfectly. I am not in any way trying to be snarky or cynical, but IMO, the goal of a high-end speaker is to SELL. No sane person is going into business to deliberately create a product that will not sell. Perhaps for cable or amplifier manufacturers, they would want a laboratory-grade speaker to help them assess their products better. But I don’t think the designers of home speakers seek the same end product as you do. I recall an episode of Gordon Ramsey where he tells the owner of a failing restaurant that he (the owner) was a great cook, but his restaurant was failing because he wasn’t cooking dishes his customers wanted to eat. Watch the movie Big Night, which is a great movie by the way, about a fine Italian restaurant with no business and the Italian place across the street with a huge business and crap food.