This is for Georgehifi especially but others can chime in.

Brevity is the soul of wit

How can anyone make a serious judgement about the sound when there are more than one pair of speakers in the room?

+1

Its easy to show that unused speakers in a room are absorbing energy from the speaker being played.

The **partial** solution is to short out the speaker terminals of the unused speakers, so their drivers can't move. This really helps.

If this is not done, then the audition thus becomes a hoax. If it is done, it simply becomes a poor audition- the speakers really should not be in the room with the active speakers.

Ralph,

As per having more than one speaker in a room, 99.9 percent of dealers unfortunately have to do this as loudspeakers do take up space.

We only have one set of speakers on deck so to speak so you can acutally get a pretty good idea of what they sound like.

Yes in an ideal world you would have only one set of speakers

In our reference room we have one set of speakers on each wall so we have two active speakers on display,

As per the results of the demo, you can still easily hear the difference between the different makes and models.

Just like if I demoed an OTL amp vs another type of amp using decent but not great cables would be demo be all of a sudden not be valid and therefore by a hoax?

Sure if we used even better cables the system should point out even greater amounts of information, but two different amps should sound noticably different don’t you think?

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

A dealer can generate business simply by invading a free forum with self promotion…as well meaning as a dealer claims to be, that still is exactly what's happening, and when there's even a hint of a commercial connection to any product touted by a dealer in an otherwise open forum, I consider that to be an unethical and somewhat slimy commercial activity designed to promote a business. Period. Others may disagree…and I don't need to "report it to the moderators" as I can state my case just fine on my own.  

In our reference room we have one set of speakers on each wall so we have two active speakers on display,

It does not matter where the unused speakers are in the room, they are affecting the sound! If the speaker connections are shorted, they will have less effect.

Just try it instead of arguing about it.

Just like if I demoed an OTL amp vs another type of amp using decent but not great cables would be demo be all of a sudden not be valid and therefore by a hoax?

[sic] 

Maybe, but this analogy does not hold up. Amps don't absorb energy from each other by being in the room.