Is it possible to have an accurate speaker

As a (long, long time) professional musician and professional live sound tech I'm AMAZED at the ability of tin eared or otherwise incompetant live sound techs to make a good system sound bad, or they lack the skills to make a mediocre system sound good. My local well equipped concert venue (I name names...The Center for the Arts in Natick, MA, or "TCAN") recently managed to make Shelby Lynn sound like she was playing from inside a small can. She wasn't. This was one of many recent poor sounding shows there...at $45 per ticket (Lynn) the crowd deserves better.

Agree Wolf. As a long,long time play around gia ta playa and concert goer I am amazed at how bad most of the venues sound. I can't beleive how bad they make some incredible musicians sound. If that was how I was introduced to them I wouldn't be as interested in them. A lot of times I say to myself 'I can't wait to hear real music again from my hi-fi system'. And then my dog slaps me and says 'that's not real'! Hey but it is a lot lot better in some cases.

It's virtually academic, unless you're setting them up in a laboratory. Even the most accurate/lowest distortion speaker, when placed into the average home environment, will exhibit significant changes in frequency response due to room interaction. Just find something that sounds good to your ear in your room.

Magico is accurate.

Wolf, I so hear and feel that pain. When the folks at Meyer Sound Labs installed and calibrated their system at Yoshi's in Oakland the house reinforcement was simply stunning and throughout most of the room.

A few short weeks had past when the professional sound people began twiddling and that quality has never come close to the original setup since then.

The University Of California At Berkeley's Greek Theater is one of the crown jewels of outdoor acoustic architecture. It's simply amazing how sound companies take one look and begin hanging needles arrays totally overloading the space.

On the other hand, the crew working with the Fleet Foxes who had only heard of the Greek managed to come in and nailed it. Even the group on stage were amazed by what they were hearing.