@bhakhti-rider, my speakers are large and heavy but still... I like your suggestion. I can't recall anyone suggesting something so obviously sensible before. Especially if you intend to spend a serious amount of money.
This combined with prof's 'human subjective speaker measurement' technique, it's clear I'm just not taking speaker auditioning seriously enough.
Generally though, I've not had too many problems with bad purchases apart from a couple of designs where the initial barely perceptible sibilance issue later became unbearable when I began rotating the volume switch clockwise.
This sibilance problem soon became so stressful that I was afraid to play unfamiliar music on them. Somehow I became obsessed with listening for it and found myself playing more far more music on my modest second system.
Eventually I had to accept that I had made a serious mistake, and it was no one's fault but mine. Hence the decision to go in armed with test tracks in future.
Therefore I would also like to add that you should ask for your music to be played back at least as loud as your normal home playback levels.
For me that's when faults and weaknesses start becoming easier to identify.
I could also suggest that listening to nice well recorded 'plinkety plonkety' jazz is more akin to having a cup of tea or coffee with a potential job applicant, when perhaps in our case a serious grilling under a bright light is a more appropriate attempt at discovering the inevitable (sometimes well-hidden) compromises that all loudspeakers possess.
This combined with prof's 'human subjective speaker measurement' technique, it's clear I'm just not taking speaker auditioning seriously enough.
Generally though, I've not had too many problems with bad purchases apart from a couple of designs where the initial barely perceptible sibilance issue later became unbearable when I began rotating the volume switch clockwise.
This sibilance problem soon became so stressful that I was afraid to play unfamiliar music on them. Somehow I became obsessed with listening for it and found myself playing more far more music on my modest second system.
Eventually I had to accept that I had made a serious mistake, and it was no one's fault but mine. Hence the decision to go in armed with test tracks in future.
Therefore I would also like to add that you should ask for your music to be played back at least as loud as your normal home playback levels.
For me that's when faults and weaknesses start becoming easier to identify.
I could also suggest that listening to nice well recorded 'plinkety plonkety' jazz is more akin to having a cup of tea or coffee with a potential job applicant, when perhaps in our case a serious grilling under a bright light is a more appropriate attempt at discovering the inevitable (sometimes well-hidden) compromises that all loudspeakers possess.