Gregadd, funny that you mentioned John Atkinson's article because I was about to mention it when you asked whether measurements can predict colorations. What I was going to mention was in Part 3 of the article, though. Some of his conclusions:
"What Makes a Good-Sounding Loudspeaker?
"Vance Dickason offers some discussion of this question, but the definitive answers are to be found in Floyd Toole's comprehensive 1986 papers. Nothing that I can conclude from my past eight years' work, at least when it comes to conventional forward-firing, moving-coil designs, is in serious conflict with his findings. As I wrote in 1991, 'The best-sounding loudspeakers, in my opinion, combine a flat on-axis midrange and treble with an absence of resonant colorations, a well-controlled high-frequency dispersion, excellent imaging precision, an optimally tuned bass, and also play loud and clean without obtrusive compression'."
And
"Most important, while measurements can tell you how a loudspeaker sounds, they can't tell you how good it is. If you carefully look at a complete set of measurements, you can actually work out a reasonably accurate prediction of how a loudspeaker will sound. However, the measured performance will not tell you if it's a good speaker or a great speaker, or if it's a good speaker or a rather boring-sounding speaker. To assess quality, the educated ear is still the only reliable judge."
http://www.stereophile.com/content/measuring-loudspeakers-part-three-page-9
