Does measurements really matter?

The speakers they're talking about are what I've always known as "Girl with a Banjo" speakers. In room might show down to 30hz but at what SPL? SPECs by manufacturers don't tell you much measurements by a third party can.

@teo_audio + 10 excellent explanation

A speaker needs to sound good that's what home loudspeakers are designed to do but to do so you need basic measurements all transducers and electrical parts used in loudspeakers are carefully designed and measured. So if the designer voices by ear they are still using parts that are all carefully designed and measured even if end results are not. Some designers are so skilled in that aspect that measurements are only used to find defects in assembly. Other companies use a measurement-based design philosophy that takes precedence over voicing. Both are viable after all we are creating devices that are used to play art and art is itself subjective. Loudspeaker design is a lot like cooking some can cook better than others, some can cook well if they carefully follow a recipe and carefully measure all, some can make most any ingredients taste great and can just wing it.

The number of boutique consumer speaker manufacturers using measurement as part of a strict incoming parts QC policy to secure zero variance in all parts is extremely low- perhaps non-existent.

If you do measure, as the engineering driven companies tend to do, OEM parts typically vary quite a bit unit to unit. SO you may do batch testing (test a few from each batch that arrives).  If you are super strict, you are throwing a lot of parts away.  Achieving perfect parts that perform exactly the same all the time and are perfectly consistent over hundreds or thousands is not a realistic target.   

A 1/2 dB variance in sensitivity applied to the entire midrange or the entire tweeter response is very audible to a listener, even if that listener cannot identify a 1/2 boost or cut somewhere along the response curve.  1/2 across the entire band is different which is why parts sensitivity is such a big deal.  Combine that with the idea that a passive crossover cannot be precision adjusted to account for this part variance.   Then one more problem, I don’t think ANYONE is making parts plus or minus 1/2 dB in sensitivity specs over the life of the part. The only way to deliver that is two choices: through anything outside a super tight QC window away or develop precision manufacturing so good you get perfect matching part to part.  I don't think that level of precision in part manufacturing exists.  So variance from part to part and then complete speaker to speaker is a part of the business. That’s why they have a overall plus or minus spec so they can absorb theses variances and still meet an overall claimed spec.

How many in the field, dealers or end users, ever A/B the same speaker?  I would say that almost never happens.  It might surprise you if you did.

Brad

Many measurements should matter to anyone putting together an audio system. Many issues arise do to incompatibilities between components.

What comprises a good outcome is mostly subjective.