05-19-12: Drew_eckhardt
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"
Well put, Drew.
Going to live acoustic concerts I sometimes do a little "mind trick" where, as the music in playing, I close my eyes and imagine I'm actually at home listening to my stereo. This way the reference for what is real is somehow more potently exposed as what to go after at home; the memory of or mental inclination telling me (with closed eyes) that I'm sitting listening in front of my home stereo, when in fact a live symphony orchestra is playing in front of me, seems a much more effective tool or "revelator" than sitting at home trying to remember the live experience, and go from there.
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.
I can't help but feel that a level a conservatism has sneaked permanently into the design of speakers in the wake of it initially being a consideration to the market. Even some of the very large "top-models" from many speaker brands continue to adhere to the approach taken with the smaller and cheaper models, as if maintaining design integrity is more important than seeking to "perfect" the sound reproduction from a perspective of non-consideration to aesthetics and mass appeal; now that these speakers are as big as they are anyway, perhaps a more rigid form-follows-function aproach would result in a design that was much more appealing than squarish boxes.