Hi Jim, as usual, has covered most of the bases, and, as usual, very articulately. I just want to add a little of my perspective gained not only from designing new speakers, but in "fixing" commercial and DIY speakers people send me (all of the time). First, in almost all cases, these speakers measure more brightly than my own designs--that is, the tweeter is level is set higher, or has a peak. I honestly can't remember any commercial speaker that had a cooler tweeter setting. So, if you don't think a Salk speaker sounds "warm" enough, it's not because it's voiced bright. Second, in every case, the commercial speakers seemed to lack focus and clarity in the crossover region between the tweeter and mid or woofer. You can see some examples of these speakers on my website (murphyblaster.com). And when I measured them, you could see the lack of integration in the form of a hole where the tweeter and mid weren't filling in, sometimes because the phase integration was poor and there was destructive cancellation. When I redid the crossovers, the upper midrange-lower treble presentation snapped into focus, and this didn't depend upon the drivers being magnesium or aluminum or poly or kevlar or paper, or even expensive. But--that region of the frequency spectrum (usually 2000-3500 Hz) is exactly where the ear is most sensitive. When you hear everything that's going on in that region, and if some of it isn't so great on the recording, you may want to fire up a different CD. But, I don't think the answer is to de-optimize the crossover to let less information through.