Analytical or Musical Which way to go?

Neither. A speaker has no business editorializing on what you're feeding it "lesee.. a little brighter here, a little boomy there, etc." You should be caught up in the music it's playing and not notice that it's "analytical" or "musical"

>Time and again I read designers yo say the design the speaker to measure as best they can. But it just does not sound like music.

They're either not measuring the right things (on-axis response isn't enough with monotonic power decreases into the first reflections also important) or they've compromised to fit market considerations and budgets (two-way cone and dome speakers with flat baffles and conventional cross-over points are inherently flawed as are electrostatic panels) and done the best they can within those constraints.

In 2004 Sean Olive actually came up with formulas that do a very good job predicting speaker preferences based on polar measurements and bass extension. They work with listeners regardless of nationality, preferred musical genre, experience as criticial listeners, etc.

>Then enters a second speaker that sounds like real music but does not have optimum mesurements?

No speaker has optimum measurements, but all that sound lifelike are very flat on-axis, have fairly monotonic directivity increases with frequency (there's some latitude in compensating for a local directivity minima with an output notch), and provide deeper bass extension.

05-22-12: Gregadd
>The advent of large corporations put us in difficult position. Who are the arbiters of what we hear and the standard by which we judge it? When the baby-boomers die off what will the standard be?

Without any hearing defects the baby boomers and generation Y share the same tastes in speakers : flat on-axis response, a monotonic directivity trend, and extended bass regardless of age and preferred musical genre.

For example:

http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2010/06/some-new-evidence-that-generation-y.html

Moving forward we can expect more speakers built to this standard because it's what people want to buy and something that can be targeted by engineering departments - Dr. Sean Olive has distilled this into a formula which ranks speakers based on polar measurements in horizontal and vertical circles which corresponds very well to blind objective comparisons.

>05-24-12: Josh358
>I'd draw a distinction, though, between picture-perfect response and accuracy with real-world material. If, say, pop recordings are hyped in the highs, as many are, you're likely to want a speaker that compensates for that.

You want neutral speakers plus a tone or tilt control which compensates for the bad recordings so that better recordings are not compromised.

05-30-12: Gregadd
>"You want neutral speakers plus a tone or tilt control which compensates for the bad recordings so that better recordings are not compromised."
Ideally yes.
>>How do we know which componet is colored?

Competently designed electronics won't be which leaves the recording and speaker/room/placement/listening position combination where relatively monotonic directivity _radically_ reduces the impact of the room.

>Or if the source is colored?

We attend live unamplified performances and validate that minimally processed (and preferably with one stereo pair for checking spatial accuracy, although that's more ambiguous) recordings sound as close as practical to live on our systems. Having validated that's the case we blame the recording.

>It has been suggested to me that EQ negatively alters the tonal balance of a speaker.

It changes the tonal balance.

That's positive when you reverse some of the damage done by a recording engineer (too many rock recordings have the high frequencies boosted).

That's positive when you kludge around typical speaker design problems where directivity broadens crossing from a midrange that's becoming acoustically large to an acoustically small dome tweeter in the 2-4Khz range leading to a harsh sound because your brain's impression of timbre incorporates the excess energy in that range from the reflected spectra. Not coincidentally this is where the BBC dip was applied which reduced output at all angles. While not the best fix (monotonic directivity does better in more rooms) it does exploit the lattitude you have in countering a local directivity minima with a frequency response dip.

That's a big negative when you take a neutral recording/speaker/room combination and apply a teenager's smiley face graphical equalizer configuration.

This holds whether the equalization is coming from cables, speaker cross-over, digital filters, or op-amp based commercial equalizer.

While some of those approaches are more intellectually appealing to "audiophiles" they all net the same effects whether good or bad (on neutral recording/speaker etc. combinations)