"If the on-axis response is flat, if the power response is smooth (it may have a slope or a gentle shelf) and if distortion across frequency doesn't do any ridiculous things you can be pretty much sure the speaker is going to give you years of very convincing playback. That doesn't mean that speakers who don't tick all the boxes will sound bad. Frequency response deviations and nonlinear distortion can sound really nice. That is what most sound engineering (mixing and mastering) is about: adding distortion, EQ'ing, compressing and whatnot. It is sometimes thought that audio objectivists presume that all distortions sound ugly. And since that's clearly not true, audio objectivism is therefore supposedly false. Well, no objectivist has ever claimed distortion (linear or nonlinear) necessarily sounds ugly.
They can sound really really nice. But that doesn't mean correct. Just like some amplifiers with loads of distortion add a lot of musicality that wasn't originally there. The trouble with purely subjectivist reviews is that you're essentially at the mercy of the reviewer's tastes If he just runs after that thing which sounds just that bit nicer than the previous thing he liked, he's locking himself into a positive feedback loop searching for the ultimate ear-candy. It's reasonable to expect that the occasional visit to unamplified live sound should keep this in check, but that presumes that the people who record music don't go out and buy the same high-end loudspeakers that the reviewers have just praised all the way to the heavens. But that's precisely what they do, particularly classical music studios and mastering engineers. Unless measurements get given their proper place as a design and evaluation tool, just the way they are in any engineering endeavour, there is no end in sight. Probably the only reason why people think not relying on measurements is somehow acceptable is because it's easy to confuse audio with music. I hate to break it but music is art, and audio is engineering. I don't like engineering to get in the way of art, which is why I think it should be undetectable.
From an audio quality point of view the ideal situation would be where reviews simply established to what degree the product fulfils its requirements. If it changes the sound it's bad, if it doesn't it's good. The longer I'm in this business the clearer it's become to me that measurements and sound go hand in hand provided you strive for the least colouration. If magazines actually reviewed along those lines you would be surprised how rapidly the audio industry would converge on seriously good equipment, both technically and sonically. Really good audio would just turn into a commodity.
But there lies the rub. Audio magazines are not in the business of evaluating kit. They're in the business of selling paper, which they do by expedient of printing things on that paper in order to make it more attractive. Reasonably objective magazines, so far, have either failed or moved into lighter prose and more sparse data. What all of this means is that it isn't in audio journalists' interest to tow the sonically neutral line. You just can't keep filling magazines with reviews of amplifiers that become ever and ever more transparent (and hence identical).
This is not an indictment. It's just logical"
