Professional vs. Consumer speakers

My brief experience as a "consultant" (supposedly, I knew something about how 19th century English choral music was supposed to sound...) for a small studio/production company introduced me to many of the realities of the recording industry touched upon by jvia in his excellent post, above. I was amazed by the variety of reproducers available even in that small facility and the extent to which the final mix was determined by the company's understanding of the target market for each CD. Critical listening was done on "pro monitors" but final mixes were chosen based on the sound coming out of all sorts of things including $14 Sony headsets and "SuperMegaBassBoost" boomboxes.

"We make it sound as good as we can on the type of equipment our market research shows it's going to be played on."

You know what was missing, of course: Anything in the way of high-end speakers. The owners' attitude: "It's a niche market; we can't afford to mix for it."

Alas, the few "niche market" studios that try hard to produce audiophile recordings so often lack the resources to hire real world-class players resulting in luscious recordings of mediocre performances.

(sigh)

will

I just wanted to add another "professional" opinion to this
post. I have owned a video editing and media duplication
company for nearly 13 years; and have owned a number of
"pro" type monitors for use in our studios, as well as number of well known home speaker brands, such as Thiel, NHT, AR, etc.
Many - if not most - of the smaller and less expensive
(under $2K) speakers seem to be built for near-field listening; with placement on a console or in a control room
environment. This is NOT the way most audiophiles listen to
their music - and when using this type of speaker, the results are sometimes less than rewarding. I will not even
discuss the fact that many of the better known "pro" speakers sound dead and unmusical to my ears. Many of the lower priced "pro" monitors also seem to be built with playback at high levels more of a consideration than any
sort of "musicality".
And while some companies - such as Westlake - do make
audiophile type pro monitors; I feel thay are the exception.
The bottom line for me is that since most of my clients don't record their audio tracks at high levels - we seem to
have more "ear-pleasing" results with monitors from AR, NHT,
etc. than with the "pro" monitors. And at home I listen to
Thiels and NHTs.

Thank you for the varied responses. It looks like this is not as simple as I'd hoped. So the near-field monitors are out. Maybe main monitors would be okay. It is hard to find these kind of speakers to audition.
I have read J. Gordon Holt's reviews of Westlake and ATC and he was really for the "pro" speakers as consumer speakers were overly lush and lacked the harshness that real world music really has.
One thing with pro speakers that I think is more universally agreed on being a good thing are the active designs.

What do you mean "harshness that real world music really has"? Listen to a jazz quartet, a symphony or a great rock band not at earbleed levels and it is not nearly as "harsh" as even a very good playback system. High quality playback systems strive to eliminate that electronically induced harshness that was introduced in the recording process. I have never heard a music system that can reproduce the dynamics, black background, clean extended highs, deep powerful bass and purity of midrange of an actual musical event. Maybe one day though...

Have you listened to ATC active 100's? Still not quite as dynamic as live but the sound was very clean. Maybe the lack of odd-order harmonics that are designed out of the drivers or the active coupling to the driver.
By "harshness" I was talking about the sharpness that, say brass instruments produce. I agreed that live instruments do not have the distortion you get in a stereo. But that's why I liked the ATC's.
I have not listened to many tube or SET amplifiers or records but they supposedly round off the "rough edges" of music that are supposed to be there but some people do not like to hear. So I understood J. Gordon Holt's description to mean that some people do not want reality in their stereo - enter devices to add euphonic distortion / coloration / smoothing of what is really being played.
I am currently trying to find a smaller speaker than ATC 100's that retains their dynamics, clarity and lack of distortion. Thiels are clear but I can't listen to them. Maybe smaller ATC's or some other pro monitor speaker.