Audiotroy,
It can also be noted that while it is absolutely true room acoustics are very important in getting the best out of any speaker set up, it’s also been shown via the research from the NRC, Floyd Toole etc that room influences are most important in the bass region. Otherwise, it’s been shown that we are quite good at "hearing through" the acoustic of a room to the character of a speaker. After all, that’s what our hearing system evolved to do, account for varying acoustic environments when trying to recognize sounds. That’s why you still recognize a familiar voice in any number of wildly varying acoustic situations.
I’ve found this to be the case, and especially so if you know what you are doing when auditioning a speaker in unfamiliar environments. Personally I evaluate a speaker from all sorts of angles and seating distances, from nearfield, to far field, to in between, off axis, under axis, you name it. By the time I’m finished I have a very good lock on the general "voice" of that speaker. I can not remember any case where I have actually been surprised by the sound of a speaker I’ve auditioned when I’ve encountered it in another room, or when I have brought it home to my own listening room. The essential characteristics were discernible in a careful evaluation.
Along those lines, and following Toole et all’s work, if a listener can get himself in to a reasonable position, not too far from a pair of speakers at a show, he should be getting enough direct sound to "hear through" the room effects enough to get *some relevant* degree of the speaker’s character.
Of course, truly awful rooms and incompetent speaker placement can make this harder.
