Stupid speaker test question...please help a n00b

I agree with a lot of your observations here. However, (whether true or "quasi" - and, as you note, it's often hard to say how the numbers came to be) the anechoic data that I've seen published for speakers has not been very useful for my main FR concern - determining that a speaker has an acceptable octave to octave balance in my room.

The published data has had little (if any) correlation to what I hear (and measure, for that matter) in my own listening room. Obviously, I can't speak to your experience applying this data. If you find it useful in "apples to apples" comparisons, that's great. I just can't say that it's been useful FOR ME in that regard.

Marty

Unsound... Everyone has access to a perfect anechoic test chamber. It is called "outdoors". I think it was KLH when it was a startup who used this.

I know that some independent testers (HTShack.com) use a parking lot for anechoic style testing. The Canadian Nat'l Lab has a large chamber that some Canadian manufacturers use and Stereophile uses a "quasi-anechoic" measurement technique that I've never seen thoroughly explained. Either way, the FR numbers that result from any of these tests never particularly reflect what I get in my own room.

Marty

>02-23-12: Unsound
>I'd be leery of putting too much stock in Sterophiles testing of first order speakers. Unlike many other speakers manufactures, first order speaker manufacturers usually suggest testing speakers at the preferred listening positions, not 1 or 2 meters, something that seems to have been challenging for Stereophile.

While I wouldn't read anything into small peaks and dips resulting from being more off-axis to one of the drivers, the narrowing and broadening horizontal dispersion are endemic to the design and captured accurately enough to show why first order acoustic cross-overs are not the best idea.