What does listening to a speaker really tell us?

Part of the voodoo here is that human hearing isn't linear. When midrange and bass tones are at equal sound pressure levels, the bass ones will sound subdued 'cause the ear is more sensitive to the midrange frequencies. The reason fidelity takes many forms stems from the basic question Pawlowski asks, fidelity to what?

Rockvirgo, your logic escapes me: why would listening to a linear speaker be any different from listening to live sounds? Do you, somehow, think that music or any live sound for that matter reaching our ears is equalized to compensate for the ears lack of linearity? The lack of knowledge and acceptance of the basics of sound reproduction, propagation and perception mark you as a younger person formed at the teat of subjective audio. Pardon me if I am wrong.

Introducing a loudspeaker in your room, listening to a reference piece of music on your unchanged upstream components, ics, pcs, tweaks, etc. gives you the nature of that loudspeaker's performance relative to your current reference loudspeaker. Aural memory of other speakers used within this identical setup will expand the base of knowledge of what speakers can tell you. For me, information about any particular item in the chain can only be gathered after a reference has been established. Then, preferences become meaningful and allow you to find audio equipment “perfect” for you.

So, what does listening to a speaker (in our own room) really tell us? From a layman's perspective I can detect, dispersion characteristics, weight, color, balance, an so forth. The most important thing the speaker will tell you is whether you have found a “keeper” or to keep looking. Good luck.

I may have been misusing the word all along, but when I speak of 'transparency', I'm referring to the amount of information on the disc that is actually conveyed, sort of the opposite of veiled or smoothed over.

What I gather is that you are speaking of here is more a question of neutrality and accuracy, no? As in, how do we really know if what we are hearing is exactly what was recorded? I'm not sure that we do, frankly.

Personally, I draw the line between audio systems that sound like recorded music, and those that sound live. I need a connection with the players, and many audio systems lose me for the same reason that a lot of abstract art does. Because somehow I'm supposed to relate to the final product, but not the artist him/herself. An audio system that does not convey the humanity and energy of the players first and foremost loses me in a hurry. And while you may be alluding to accuracy and neutrality, I believe those judgments to be more intellectually based--and thus, more distancing--and have less of an gut-level, emotional impact than transparency does. In other words, IMO live music doesn't convey pleasantry. Rather, it bites down hard.

Very interesting topic!

Mark me as a person who having once fallen for "look at the perfect sine wave this unit produces" eventually graduated to a more mature understanding of the audio ARTS in all their varied subjective splendor. The good news is that anyone, who got suckered on accuracy as an equilvalent of audio nirvana AND is willing to admit to it, merits an opportunity to explore the wonderful world of perception called musicality. Great topic!