" If you buy speakers that have a VERY flat frequency response, good quality drivers, good cross over design in a nice cabinet, you can get away without an audition. Mine are 34 - 20k hz +/- 1.5 db and 29 - 45k +/- 3 db. -- VolsFan846
Agreed! Toole's research has shown this to be true with most people and it certainly is for me. I look at the FR at 0°, 15°, 30° and waterfalls mostly. Polars and distortion graphs are good too ... when you can find them. Haven't been disappointed with this approach yet. I totally ignore subjective reviews and the latest forum-hyped speakers. I've been around long enough to see many forum darlings quickly lose their appeal after the herd anticipation wears off.
However, for HT speakers, accuracy isn't as important to me. It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted there. I almost got caught up on the "dynamics" train, but realized I'm not an SPL guy, and what I like is spaciousness and detail ... like a twig snapping three feet outside and two feet behind the left speaker ... the point being, I wanted to be encapsulated by sound like in the real world, so soundstage became more important. Fortunately I heard just the speakers that could do that in someone's home. I don't yet know how to pick this quality out on a graph. Maybe it can be done, I just don't know how.