It is unfortunate (but probably inevitable) that some would turn Toole and/or controlled directivity into the new audio religion. Audio is always about engineering trade-offs. On a given day, in a given room, in a given system, with whatever music, systems of all types can sing sweetly, whether OB, horn, wideband, planar. And whether CD or not. We all know this because we've all experienced it first-hand, assuming we opened our ears and minds.
Toole is researching the general case -- what do people say they like, under test conditions? Then he averages their responses. While totally fascinating as research, it doesn't dictate how we as individuals build our systems. There are a lot of terrible-sounding CD speakers out there (and a few good ones) but we probably don't agree on which ones. And there are many which can sound sweet which were engineered with other design goals, with CD as an afterthought. That's just trading off as always.
To wave one's hand and dismiss all but a few speakers (or design approaches) as "incompetent" in deliberately provocative language has nothing to do with actual engineering. It's just people "listening to the Internet" instead of spending that time measuring, tweaking, listening and exchanging first-hand information.
And there's probably no need to say, but if you go back to Toole, the supposed leader of this revolution, you will find he is humble and very measured in his conclusions. And he is not against room treatment.
