How do you know what a good speaker is?


Frequency response for high end speakers at every price level is usually relatively flat. The differences in audible sound quality reported by audiophiles is disproportionate to the differences in frequency response between different speakers therefore frequency response cannot be a very significant factor in what we're hearing.
Distortion is usually below 0.5% so again the same reasoning applies.
I'm not convinced that polar response is quite as important as is sometimes claimed. 

If you look at the specs of most ultra high end loudspeakers,  there's no hard evidence provided by the manufacturers to justify their claims that their speaker is vastly superior.
And if there was it would need to be independently verified.

So how does the consumer know how close any given loudspeaker is to the ideal loudspeaker? How do we know how close a loudspeaker is to recreating the sound of a violin, cello, piano, human voice, or anything else? 

What makes a magico vastly different from a yg or Wilson? On the other hand if the difference between these speakers is extremely small then why is there such a discrepancy in opinions and why do we need a yg and a magico and Wilson and tidal audio and b&w etc on the market if they're all so similar?  







kenjit
A good speaker for me is one which lets you enjoy the musicality of a wide genres of music and is able to emlighten me as to the instruments involved.
You just know, may not be someone elses choice but if it sounds good to you then it's good !

I've had so many speakers.... dozens but most were not able to convey that "live sound" that blows you away .   I remember years ago i visited a small dealer who  sold Mc Intosh and Klipsch.  When I walked in I was blown away by the opening of the track "Crossfire" by Stevie Ray coming through a pair of LaScalas.... it was awesome and was somewhat the benchmark for me when it comes to capturing the dynamics and huge soundstage of a live performance.

Fast foward 25 years later, I walked into a dealer and there was some weird Bjork song playing, the image was huge and instruments floated way beyond the physical box.   I could not believe it was a pair of Klipsch Heresy III.  I auditioned a few other speakers in their price range and after that I knew that was a great speaker for me...  

I've them about a year and can honestly say I love them .  They aren't perfect but are a lot of speaker for the money.   You have to let your ears decide. 
One of the best i ever owned were the pioneer S910's...those did a good job from a 40-100wrms amp,Ran them on my first new HIFI technics suv2..1978.In the late 80's picked up a monster pioneer system...
You absolutely hit the nail on the head Cleeds!
Not only will a good speaker faithfully reproduce the "true" sound of an instrument, you will be able to tell what is making the instrument produce sound - air (for brass and woodwind instruments), a variety of 'sticks' for percussion instruments, or fingers and/or a bow for string instruments...
But the 'true' sound of an instrument does not translate well with electric instruments. Once saw Andy Summers on a TV documentary make synthesized piano notes with his guitar demonstrating that with the available tech, he could generate any sound he wanted to with his guitar.