Not at all too "out there" of a topic...but, for me, too, it’s just been pretty doggone hard to ever reliably identify any real cause. Although they can certainly be pointed to as exhibiting the effect sometimes, it’s not just limited to speakers either...amps, amp/preamp combinations and amp/speaker combinations, as has been mentioned, have sometimes seemed to exhibit this problem, but also TT’s and/or carts (perhaps more particularly, it may seem, among some of the post-CD designs) have done this as well. Even some rather expensive systems based on these components from time to time have been reported to leave some listeners a bit cold - very competent sounding, but, somehow just too sterile or un-involving. This particular anomaly to me doesn’t seem to have any clear common denominator. Sometimes it looks as though it might be a setup or synergy type thing - a user problem, and sometimes it seems as though it might be a problem with particular gear - a manufacturer problem...as though it may have been designed with possibly a little too much emphasis on engineering and perhaps not enough on listening evaluations along the course of its development...or maybe simply designed by some people who aren’t exactly clued in on what real music sounds like...or who are at least not considering what would pass for a musical sound, anyway. Everybody may have a different take on what is musical, or how much emphasis should be placed on which musical aspects, or whatever. I would like to think that as a relatively experienced listener that I have a rather good grasp on that at this point, at least for my own purposes anyway, but I also know that my own definition of what is musical is not quite the same as what it was even ten years ago, nor was it then the same as it was ten years before that. Everybody’s experience level keeps changing over time and at any time, of course, there are any number of people in this hobby who have been at it longer than me, are just starting out or are anywhere in between. I’d say it’s probably the same with manufacturers...at least with the good ones who are determined to not just reach a certain plateau and stay there... But, I can only guess that the phenomenon you point out, Sunnyjim, is one for which there is not really any single cause.
