How do you know what a good speaker is?

The reason why the majority of speakers offered today have good frequency, dynamic, timbre and spacial responses is due to competition from a wide variety of designers and companies, each with their own version of the answer to your main question. Each individual carries her/his own set of subjective, objective, emotional, quantitative and qualitiative values, opinions, ears and eyes as to what forms the so-called "ideal." Even identical twins have their own sets of preferences simply because it's physically impossible for any two people to always occupy the same place and time, and experience the exact same things, simultaneously.

I celebrate that we get to live in a time when there is an abundance of choice, that there is no "ideal" or absolute, and that part of the pleasure is in the hunt to find the speaker, and, as importantly, its associated components and listening environment, to form the system, and, as Tom says, puts the smile on my face and makes me want to listen for hours.

I’m convinced that a “good” speaker is only good within a given “system”. Same speaker moved to a different room and paired with a different system will not be as “good”.

I think my speakers are good. They are largish tower speakers. They pass Tomcarr's smile test every time. And are a joy to listen to all evening long.

I don't know enough to explain why they are 'good'. But the two things you notice most when you examine them is that they are dense. Knock on them with your hand and it feels like they are made of a solid block of wood. Seriously. And the second thing you will notice is that they are heavy. Even heavier than their density and appearance would suggest. So heavy they are difficult to move around and re-position with just one person.

I have no idea if these are critical speaker features or not. But they are definitely noticeable and apparently very intentional.

kenjit

How do we know how close a loudspeaker is to recreating the sound of a violin, cello, piano, human voice, or anything else ...

If you know what real instruments sound like, you'll recognize them when you hear them through a speaker system.

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.

I completely disagree. If you are going by specmanship, yes, this is true. You cannot look at a speaker’s numbers.

However, I have found repeatedly that the details of the FR matter a great deal. A lot of speakers which are purported to give details, or incredible imaging have tweaks in the FR and if you know what to look for you’ll see it. The tell is a reviewer making a claim like this:

I found myself going through my old record collection and I heard things I've never heard before!

That's usually a pretty good indicator of this.

It disturbs me greatly when I see audio critics calling these speakers transparent or neutral when their own measurements show otherwise. JA does this to the pint when he finds a neutral speaker he calls it deliberately altered. The point is, these critics set the bar as to what the community calls neutral.
Besides FR and distortion, dispersion and stored energy matter a great deal. Dispersion affects how well a speaker will sound in a particular room and where imaging will be best. Stored energy will affect the ability of a speaker to sound natural, transparent.

Another overlooked item which matters (more with some amps than others) is the impedance curve, and I know for a fact some manufacturers deliberately tweak their speakers to be more "discerning" of amplifiers.

I reiterate my position: Buy what yo like to listen to. You have that unqualified right. These are my technical observations.

E