How to meaningfully audition speakers??

Frogman, I agree as a general principle that an "audiophile" grade rig should be able to create the real thing as closely as possible. True "fidelity" I suppose?? But I am dubious that even the very best rig (and all that the term entails) can do more than approach the aspirational standard. Further, it is my experience that each incremental improvement is coming at a cost that increases at a rate that is disproportionate to the incremental improvement.

At this stage of the game, I have become more circumspect about what any component change can really achieve. Instead, my goal is to assemble a system whose individual components are compatible and whose musical presentation is engaging and enjoyable. Further, as a number of folks have mentioned above, even if one is able to assemble a perfect rig, the quality of source material is spotty.

Last point -- an obvious truism I think. This OP was about how to meaningfully audition speakers. I was hoping for some new insight that I may have overlooked. It seems that the bottom line is that it's a very difficult thing to do given the state of our hobby. And that goes to other components as well. My experience has been buy pre-owned top grade components, try them, keep what works and sell what doesn't.

Best and thanks for all the comments.

BIF

Frogman, you have arrived at the nub of the issue.
In my experience, I had a very high end audio shop in the late 80's, and subsequent experiences with "audiophiles", very few people want high fidelity.
Most want what they think or would like music to sound like and this mostly reflects their personality. Some want razor sharp images and warp speed on everything, others want a polite inoffensive sound. Some want gut wrenching bass.
Very few would be happy with an accurate sound ( of a studio recording ) or live music in their living room.
This fundamental driver of what a person wants from an audio system, which is NOT high fidelity, I believe is almost certainly the root cause of many of the debates in this forum.

Since 2007 I focus on what I call 3-dimensional sound. Because the difference between 2 and 3-dimensional is very big. The emotion you feel with 3 dimensional sound is a lot bigger. So I let people listen to both to understand the difference. Sound is the most important part in audio. Because this is the most important part to listen to your favorite music for many hours in a row. Music is emotion, that is why my focus is on the emotional sound of music. I try to get the maximum level of emotion out of music. Music is the essential part in audio. In this world there are too many people who focus too much on audio instead of music. First you need to understand music before you can understand audio. After this you need to understand all the different properties brands have. This you need to know of all the different amps. sources, speakers, cables, conditioners etc. Audio is the art of using and making the right combination of the different properties amps, sources, speakers, cables, conditioners have. These days my focus is only on 3-dimensional sound. Because this is the only and best way to the absolute sound. I see it at the smiles on people there faces and see people tapping with there feet. Audio is all about music and emotion. It is that simple!

Bo's response is, again, even if read closely, useless, if only because of his annoying disregard of the fact that people hear things differently. That is the Monkey Wrench of personal opinion that trumps all else in audio appreciation. Opinions of "different properties" is always subjective and that's what my guitar speaker analogy is about. All speakers have a "sound" of their own and nothing exists as a reference, since the nature of even acoustic sound isn't absolute since we all hear things in individual heads. Room correction is using somebody else's head by the way...and I'm fine with my own. Listen to one of my acoustic guitars with your face 10 inches from the soundbox...you think that's a reference? Hmmm...stick your head in my piano...same thing...I prefer the image my hifi gives me (if I'm not actually playing the instrument), because it feels right for me, and all the gizmo swapping bullshit would do is waste my listening time, although I can swap anyway if I feel it needs it, or I simply feel like it due to boredom and/or compulsion. I recently attended a Ricky Lee Jones show that was packed with emotion (and the sound at my local venue was actually good...better than usual), and this weekend mixed the live sound for a pile of world class veteran jazz dudes (with 2 astonishing female singers) doing a tribute to Billy Holiday. Even in a concert hall with dreadful acoustics, everybody got the emotion and I don't think anyone cared about the "sound"...except me since I was getting paid for that.

The way how I use audio is very effective. I can easy let people hear a higher level in quality than other shops give to the same people. This is not subjective. This is what people can hear and understand. So your words are useless ( again, like they often are) Depth and wide is not subjective, it is what everyone can hear ( when you have a normal hearing) The same about how big an instrument or voice is projected during listening. There is one thing we agree that is about sound. This needs to be invloving or you never will be happy with it. The misstake you make is focussing on persons. I read some of your answers on treads, you do it more. I never will be personal, maybe this time a little. Because you never stop. Wolfy focus on the threads and the discussion about audio. When I read your answers I see an amature.